His expression shuttered. “You’re a friend of Nancy’s?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what?” His voice hardened. “Exactly?”
“Only an acquaintance. I heard she won the contest at the chant last night. Did you see it?”
“No.” He turned on his heel. “Help yourself to refreshments.” He strode to the two men and said something to them in a voice too low for me to hear. They glanced at me, then closed ranks.
So much for getting inside info. Wandering to the long table, I collected one of every pamphlet and flyer offered. I stuffed them into my bag and exited the tent.
Outside the tent’s entrance, Lana nodded, somber. “Did you get the information you were looking for?”
“Sort of. I’m sorry about Robert.”
She paled. “You knew him?”
“No, but I heard a lot about him.”
“He was a wonderful human being,” she choked out. A tear leaked from her eye, and she swiped it away.
“I met a woman yesterday who suggested I ask him about Celtic folklore.”
“He did know a lot of it. Who recommended him?”
“Nancy Mullen.”
She stiffened. “That surprises me, since she hated his guts.”
“Oh?”
“They used to be together, but it wasn’t working.”
“You mean, they were dating?”
She nodded, and her gray hood fell to her shoulders. “Yeah, and then he met Marissa—”
“Marissa?”
“My friend. I’m so glad now Marissa wasn’t here this weekend.”
“Where was she?” I asked.
“She’s in Hawaii at a retreat. I just got off the phone with her. The police had called to tell her…” She looked toward a slender oak, wedged between two tall tents.
“I’m sorry. That must have been rough.”
“It was.”
“So Robert dropped Nancy for Marissa?” I asked. “When did this happen?”
“About three months ago.”
Then Nancy’s wound was still fresh. It could be a motive for murder. “Were you at the chant last night?”
“Yes, and I had no idea while I was dancing, Robert was—” She gulped.
“I heard Nancy Mullen was there too.”
Her lip curled. “Nancy and her acolyte.”
“Acolyte?”
“Partridge. That toadying little—” She pressed her lips together. “Anyway, you couldn’t miss Nancy in her Badb costume. She always had to be the center of attention.”
My breath hitched. Maybe Nancy really did have an alibi. Could I have been wrong about the killer the whole time? “Do you know if she was there all night?”
“I think so. I mean, like I said, she was hard to miss. And she was there for the contest at the end of the night.”
“Nancy told me Robert was an expert in something called the Far Darocha.”
She froze. Sweat beaded above her mouth. “No.”
“He wasn’t an expert?”
“I mean,” she stammered, “I don’t know anything about that. Have a blessed day.” She hurried inside the tent.
What was that about?
6
My phone rang in the pocket of my shorts, and I yanked it free. Lenore.
“Hey, witch.” I moved into the shade of a stand selling handmade brooms. “Did you find anything?” I ran my fingers along the base of an orange, black and straw-colored broom hanging from an oak branch.
“I’m not sure,” my sister said. “What’s going on over there?”
I told her about the murder, about Nancy.
“You can’t be certain Nancy Mullen killed him,” Lenore said.
I thought of Nancy’s smile. “Oh, I’m pretty certain.” But her alibi…
“I’ll see what I can find on her too.”
“Thanks. What have you learned so far?”
“The Far Darocha can control people’s minds, especially the weaker willed. At least, that’s according to the folklore.”
A chill rippled my skin. I thought of that blank look on Partridge’s face, her confused responses, the feel of dark magic. “That, uh, tracks.”
“Wait, is that thing there?”
“I hope not. But a woman I spoke with today seemed to be under some kind of mind control. It was weird. Nancy Mullen told me Robert Darian had invoked the Far Darocha, but she’s the one who seems to have its power.”
“Seems?”
“It’s a feeling.”
“But why would she kill Darian?”
“Love. Revenge. He jilted her.”
“Ah. Anyway, there’s another story. The Far Darocha was more than the fairy queen’s henchman. He was also her enforcer. If a human left fairyland and blabbed about it, he’d deal with them.”
My scalp prickled. Lenore had once gone to fairyland and returned. “Deal with them how?”
“The usual horrors. Pluck out their eye. Wither their muscles.” She laughed uneasily.
My grip grew slippery on my phone. I wasn’t the only one in danger if the Far Darocha was at large. Lenore could not come anywhere near PaganCon.
“Good thing I didn’t blab about my little visit,” she continued.
For a moment I couldn’t speak, because she had blabbed. I knew about Lenore’s trip to fairyland. And so did our sister Karin and Mrs. Steinberg, an elderly magical practitioner in Doyle. Would that be enough to set the Far Darocha on my baby sister?
I cleared my throat. “What about Robert Darian?”
“I’ve reached out to all my contacts and esoteric chat rooms. No one has a bad word to say about Darian.”
“Any hints he may have been involved in dark magic?”
“None. When word gets out he’s been killed, it’s going to make some big ripples in the occult pond. He was well liked and respected. He was a teacher to many—not just to druids. I guess he could have been secretly evil, but there’s no sign of it.”
“So Nancy lied about that too.” I bet she’d projected all her own darkness onto Robert Darian.
“Where are you now?”
“I’m still at the con. It closes tonight, so I have to work fast.”
“You need help. I’ll be there in—”
“No.” I stiffened.
“I’m not afraid of the Far Darocha,” she said quietly.
“Maybe you should be.”
She was silent a long moment. “We’ve dealt with fairies before.”
“And knowledge is power. Keep researching. You’ll do me more good right now at your computer than here.”
“I wish Karin or Brayden were there.”
But our sister Karin was on vacation with her family in Florida. “I do too. Look, I promise not to confront any fairies or druids on my own. Right now, I’m just trying to break Nancy’s alibi.”
Lenore sighed. “If anything changes—”
“I’ll call.” After I broke the alibi.
“Jayce—”
I swayed, suddenly dizzy. The morning seemed hotter, and I shook my head, trying to clear it. “Sorry,” I said. “You were saying?”
The line was dead. Weird. But reception was notoriously bad in the foothills, and we’d said what we had to say.
I walked to the registration tent, near the front gate. The people working there might be able to point me toward the ones who’d run the chant and costume contest.
Inside the stifling tent, a long line of people waited to get their passes. PaganCon must be a hot ticket if it was this crowded so early. But today was Halloween. Aside from some winery parties, there wasn’t much else going on in the Sierra foothills.
At the information table, a redhead in a purple wizard’s gown bowed over a laptop computer.
“Hi, Gwendy,” I said. “Busy morning.”
She straightened and smiled. “About normal, I’d say. Hey, I could use your opinion.” Gwendy swiveled the laptop toward me. “We need to pick one photo for our social media page, bu
t I can’t decide which is better.”
I gazed at a photo of a human-sized raven in a plaid kilt. “Wow. Amazing costume.”
“That’s why she won.”
“Wait,” I said. “This is the winner of the costume contest? I thought a Celtic goddess won?”
“She is a Celtic goddess. It’s Badb, goddess of war, in her crow form.”
I blinked. Crow? Was that what Partridge had been drawing? The head of a crow?
“Or do you think this picture is sharper?” Gwendy clicked the keyboard and an identical photo slid into place.
I studied the two images. Whoever was in the costume was completely hidden. Anyone could have worn it. Was that what Partridge had been trying to tell me? That she’d been the one in the crow costume? “I vote for the first.”
“Yeah, I think so too. Thanks! But you didn’t come here to help me with my photo issues. What can I do for you?”
“Um, who took this picture?”
“The con photographer, Jim.”
“Is he working today?”
“Yep. He’s working until the gates close at five.”
“Do you have his cell number by chance?”
She made a face. “I’m not supposed to give it out.”
Rats. “It’s okay. I’ll track him down.” But how long would that take?
“Hold on.” She surveyed a stack of business cards on the table and extended one to me. “He put these cards out to drum up business, so… I guess the no-contacts rule is moot.”
I took the slick card, a photo of a mountain scene. “Thanks, Gwendy. You’re the best.”
She laughed. “I can but try.”
“I’d better let you go. If it’s this busy at nine a.m., you’re in for a crazy day.”
“Nine? It’s after ten.”
“No it isn’t.” I checked my phone, and my brain froze. The clock said ten-ten. How had I spent over an hour with Partridge?
“Are you okay?” Gwendy asked.
“Yeah. Sorry. I… just had a weird moment. Thanks.” I strode from the tent.
The faint scent of cinnamon and burning leaves carried in the wind. Stopping beside a stand selling Celtic jewelry, I called the photographer. It went to voicemail.
I scanned the growing crowds thronging the dirt trail. If Partridge had pretended to be Nancy, she was an accessory to murder. I needed to find her.
But first, I called the sheriff.
“Jayce,” she said cautiously.
“I’ve learned some things.” I told her what I knew and what I suspected.
“That’s not learning,” she said. “That’s guessing.”
“No one could have possibly known who was in that crow costume. It could have been Partridge.”
She gusted out a breath. “Nancy Mullen told me she was dressed as a goddess, not a crow.”
“The goddess is a crow.”
“Huh. An obscuring mask like that weakens her alibi.”
My heart lifted. “You bet it does.”
“But her assistant said they were together for that whole chant-costume thing. That’s an alibi.”
My heart hit my shoes. “Partridge? She’s lying.”
“Maybe. I’ll talk to her again. You know if she’s at PaganCon?”
“I saw her at the Con this morning, but I’ve no idea where she is now.”
“Okay.” The line went dead.
I frowned at the phone. Another dropped call? And then I swayed.
My phone read twelve-twelve.
I had not spent two hours talking to Sheriff McCourt. It wasn’t possible. Unless…
Lost time isn’t just a UFO phenomena. A tremor wracked my body. People who encounter fairies have reported lost time too.
The phone slipped in my damp hand. Hastily, I jammed it into the pocket of my shorts before I could drop it. It took me two tries to fit it in.
Wildly, I looked toward the jewelry stand. The seller, in a medieval gray and green gown, smiled at me. Had I been standing here in a daze for two hours and no one noticed? Hundreds of people must have walked past me in the last two hours. This was more than a mental manipulation. This was big.
The right hand of the fairy queen.
I tried to swallow but couldn’t manage it. My mouth was too dry.
The Far Darocha was here, and it was messing with me, and I had less than five hours left. I had to find Partridge. Now.
I cut behind the smithy, steaming with heat, and clanging with the sound of metal on metal. Tourists crowded as close as they dared, horseshoes and railroad spikes in their hands.
I jogged across the trail to the stone circle. Since I’d been here this morning, someone had crowned their granite tops with wreaths of orange flowers. What else had happened while I’d been lost in time?
I gave a small, grim shake of my head. Don’t think about it. Find Partridge.
I pulled out my new con map and unhooked my pendulum necklace. The quartz crystal bounced and juddered at the end of the chain, and I grabbed the pendant to still it.
Get a grip, Jayce. I visualized a cord racing from my third chakra deep into the earth. It wrapped around a massive pink quartz.
Warm earth energy flowed into me, and my pulse slowed. My breathing steadied.
Whisking my hand down the chain and crystal, I cleansed my pendulum of any leftover energy. I set the PaganCon map on the ground and dangled the pendulum above it.
“Show me Partridge.”
The pendulum spiraled lazily.
I felt a gentle tug and shifted my hand in that direction, to the upper right corner of the map.
The crystal’s movement grew smaller and slower, and it tugged me again. The crystal steadied above the pumpkin patch.
I folded the map and stuffed it into my macramé bag. “Pagan pumpkins it is.”
And the pumpkin patch was where I found Partridge’s body, one shoe sticking from beneath a tumble of hay bales.
7
Partridge was dead.
So was my only chance of breaking Nancy’s alibi.
My heart thudded dully in my chest. I sat on a hay bale and watched deputies unspool yellow police tape. I watched a photographer snap photos. I watched crime scene techs in covered shoes work the scene.
The sun slid toward the west. It was after three. The con closed in less than two hours. Partridge was dead and I was done.
Nancy Mullen stood beside a bouncy castle and spoke to the sheriff. She looked over her shoulder at me. A satisfied expression crossed her face and as quickly vanished.
I pressed my forehead into my hands. I’d found another body. It wasn’t a good look. The sheriff would have to take me in now.
At least I hadn’t slipped forward in time again. I’d taken to checking my phone obsessively. It was three-thirty, exactly.
My phone rang. Without looking at the caller ID, I answered.
“Jayce?” Lenore asked. “How are things going?”
A child pressed his face against the picket fence surrounding the pumpkin patch. His mother, dressed as a classic witch in black, grabbed his pudgy hand and pulled him away.
“Not good,” I said heavily. “Partridge is dead.”
“What? How?”
“I don’t know.”
Beside the bouncy castle, the councilwoman pressed a hand to her face and bowed her head.
I really hated her.
“That does it,” my sister said. “I’m coming to the con.”
My chest squeezed. Lenore couldn’t come as long as the Far Darocha was here. “You can’t. All the tickets are sold out,” I lied.
“I’ll climb a fence.”
“No, you won’t. You’re the least athletic of the three of us.”
“I do yoga,” she said, indignant.
“Look, I’m with the sheriff. I’m safe. Did you learn anything else in your research?”
“Nancy’s being positioned for state office. Word is she may go higher. She went from school board to town council when one of the c
ouncilors had a heart attack.”
“Convenient.”
“She won the special election. She’s being backed by some big construction firms. And she recently moved from an apartment into a very, very nice house.”
“You think magic was involved in all her good fortune?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Things have been going her way lately, but that doesn’t mean she’s made a pact with the devil.”
With the Far Darocha.
“Jayce, there’s something else. There was a forensic investigation into the school board’s accounts when she was on the board.”
“Was anything found?”
“No. The investigator jumped off a four-story parking garage.”
“What?”
“It happened the day before he was to announce the results. The whole investigation seemed to just… go away.”
“That was even more convenient.”
“She might be more than we can handle.”
My stomach lurched. Than I can handle, she meant. “I’ll leave it to the sheriff from here on in. As soon as McCourt lets me leave, I’ll drive to your bookstore and we can sort things out,” I lied again.
“I’ll wait. But I hope the sheriff can manage the situation. I know you trust her, Jayce. And I guess I do too, but—”
“See what else you can find out. Talk to you soon.” Tasting dust, I hung up before she could argue. I didn’t want my baby sister anywhere near anything related to the Far Darocha.
Nancy met my gaze across the pumpkin patch and nodded. It was a yeah-we-get-each-other nod, an I’m-in-charge nod, a good-luck-getting-out-of-this nod.
Did I mention I hated her?
8
I knew I shouldn’t leave. The sheriff hadn’t given me permission to go. But sometimes, asking forgiveness instead of permission is the smart play. Besides, my time was running out.
I left the controlled chaos of the crime scene and beelined for the smithy.
The blacksmith sold me a railroad spike. “Lucky horseshoes are half off with purchase.” He smiled through his black beard.
“No thanks.” I dropped it into my bag. “This is all I need.”
“Need—?”
I hurried away to a quiet spot and used my pendulum to find the con photographer. My pendant pointed at the children’s area. I jogged to the playground, in a cool depression shaded by oaks. The lowering sun cast slanting shadows through its leafy shelter.
Cold Cases and Haunted Places Page 25