5 Beewitched (31 page)

I felt a shiver, and it wasn’t from the cool fall weather, either. Whoever had been on the other end of the line was right down the road at the time. What the heck was going on?

After blubbering about maybe being mistaken after all, and him advising me to focus on my family event and leave detective work to the detective, I hung up and shared the grim news with Patti.

“Any Tom, Dick, or Harry could have used that pay phone,” Patti said, sounding as disappointed as I felt.

“Which, I can’t help thinking, is exactly why our mystery caller went there.”

If she wanted to remain anonymous, she’d certainly done a bang-up job.

Thirty-five

We arrived to a flurry of activity at Holly’s lakeside
mansion. Workers were assembling a large white canopy tent. Tables and stacks of chairs were off to the side, a florist’s truck was parked in the driveway, and Holly, clipboard clutched against her chest, was consulting with Milly.

Grams had her point-and-shoot out and was busy immortalizing the pre-wedding scene while Mom sat at one of my sister’s wrought-iron patio tables, deep in conversation with someone. At first I couldn’t tell who, because her back was to me, but then I realized the visitor was Iris Whelan.

Both she and Mom were dressed in somber attire rather than in pre-wedding glitter. So was Grams, now that I noticed.

“Why the funeral apparel?” I asked Grams.

“We’re on our way to a memorial service for Claudene Mason,” my grandmother answered.

“I didn’t hear a thing about a service.”

“It’s not like Al was going to do anything for her, so Iris put together a small group of us to have our own little ceremony, to send her off properly.”

“I didn’t get an invitation.”

“Me, either,” Patti said, although why in the world should she? Patti hadn’t known Rosina at all. Okay, so I had barely known her myself, but at least we’d actually spoken.

“This is for a select few,” Grams informed us. “Your mother says you aren’t invited.”

Which was fine by me. Except what if they started telling stories about the deceased woman and mentioned something significant, a gem from the past that might shed some light on her murder?

“Where is it going to be?” I wanted to know.

Mom overheard us with her bionic ears and gave everybody an order. “Don’t tell her where we are meeting. Story, you aren’t invited.” Then to Iris, “She’s a bit of an event crasher.”

“That doesn’t surprise me one iota,” Iris agreed.

“I am not,” I said in my defense.

“Yes, she certainly is,” Patti, the eternal brownnoser, said to my mother.

“Don’t worry,” Grams whispered to me. “I’ll give you a rundown if anything exciting comes up.”

Grams’s dog Dinky, looking as scruffy as ever, ran up to me. I picked her up and we shared hugs and kisses. Then she squirmed, and I put her back down before she could pee on me (an old habit of hers) and sidled over to Holly and Milly where I had a better chance of being appreciated.

“What do you think of this menu?” Holly said, handing me a sheet of paper. “After the date was moved, we thought we better scale back. Mom has decided to have the ceremony at one in the afternoon, with champagne and a few hors d’oeuvres following.”

“And a red velvet wedding cake for dessert,” Mom yelled over.

The choices sounded yummy:

• shrimp cocktail
  
• assorted seasonal fruit with an amaretto cream dipping sauce
  
• Italian wedding soup
  
• pear and gorgonzola crostini
  
• spanakopita
  

“How about a Wisconsin cheese fondue? I have some baby Swiss at the store that will be perfect,” I suggested, which both Holly and Milly thought sounded great.

“You’d think we were feeding an army,” Mom called out.

Grams winked at me, giving me a heads-up that she had a conspiracy in motion. Mom didn’t stand a chance when Grams put her mind to something. If she wanted to invite the entire aging population of Moraine, she was going to do just that. My grandmother doesn’t exert her influence often, but when she does, it’s amazing how powerful she can be.

Then Grams said to Mom, “We better skedaddle to the memorial. I’ll drive.”

“Helen says your driving isn’t so good,” Iris said to Grams, referring to my mother’s experienced observation, one she shares with anybody who will listen.

“She’s a good driver,” I lied. “I drive with Grams all the time.”

While Grams and Mom fluttered around getting ready, I took a moment to question Iris.

“Did you ever hear Claudene refer to somebody called Nemesis?” I asked her.

“Who has a name like that?”

“It doesn’t ring a bell then?”

“Not a one.”

“Did Claudene have any enemies that you knew of?”

Iris thought about that. “There was one person who had it in for her.”

I wasn’t about to get my hopes up, since every time so far had been a big disappointment. But I couldn’t help feeling a small rush of anticipation. I held my breath.

“Her dead boyfriend’s family,” Iris went on. “They were the reason Claudene was a suspect in the first place. And even after Claudene was cleared of any wrongdoing, they wouldn’t stop accusing and threatening her, the mother in particular.”

“Maybe that was the reason Claudene changed her name to Rosina.”

“She
did
move away right after that.”

“This Buddy Marciniak. I tried to find him using old Milwaukee city directories online, but Buddy must have been a nickname. Do you remember his real name or his mother’s first name?”

Iris shook her head. “Buddy was all she called him.” Then her eyes widened. “Oh, wait, the mother’s name started with an
E
.”

“That should be easy,” I said. “I mean really? How many female names are there that start with an
E
?”

As it turned out, there were a ton.

“Elma?” I asked. “Elizabeth? Ellen? Eve? Esmeralda? Estelle? Emma? Eunice?”

Iris shook her head at every single one, until I ran out of steam.

Then she snapped her fingers. “Eleanor!” she exclaimed. By now Grams and Mom were in the Caddy. Mom leaned over Grams and laid on the horn.

Iris said to me, “You Fischers are all alike. Man crazy and impatient.” Then she scooted away, calling over her shoulder, “Her name was definitely Eleanor.”

I felt like I’d won the lottery.

For the first time I had a name: Eleanor Marciniak.

Thirty-six

Best of all, there was an Eleanor Marciniak in the current
online white pages. It had to be the same woman. On the way back to the store, with Patti riding shotgun and working the computer, I called the phone number. After four or five rings I got voice mail, and a woman’s voice asked me to leave a message.

So I did.

“My name is Story Fischer and my mother was a Marciniak,” I said. Patti’s head swung up and around at my fib. “I’m researching my family history, and hope you can shed some light on my past. If you would please call me, I’d really appreciate it.”

When I disconnected, Patti said, expressing awe, “There’s hope for you after all.”

“Something was odd,” I muttered.

“What was?”

“That voice seemed familiar in some way.”

“Like you know her?”

I shook my head. The moment had passed. “Here’s what might have happened,” I said, working up another of the zillion scenarios that have gone through my head since the murder. “The dead guy’s family blamed his girlfriend for his death. The mother could have known that Rosina was a witch, and never stopped believing that Rosina had killed him.”

Patti, always loving to throw a crimp in things, said, “So instead of just murdering her in her sleep one dark night, Eleanor follows her all the way out here from Milwaukee, sneaks into the middle of an entire coven, and stabs her to death?”

“It sounded better in my head, before you had to go and verbalize it.”

“One of the witches did it,” Patti insisted, staring at the computer screen. “And none of them could be the mother because Rosina would have recognized her. Even that new neighbor of ours could have had plenty of time to run down to the gas station and make those calls. If only I could find proof in all this data.”

“Let me finish my theory,” I said, working on my own argument. “Eleanor found out that Claudene had changed her name to Rosina.”

“That’s public record,” Patti added, sort of listening.

“So she tracked her down. Eleanor became Nemesis online to get close to Rosina. But all the time she was pretending to be a friend, she was actually plotting her revenge. Oh my gosh!”

Was I excited or what? “And Nemesis was the number thirteen who cancelled,” I continued. Finally, a small bit of light was shining where none had been before. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a single shred of evidence. I have to give Patti credit, because she was giving me a little benefit before the doubt.

“You’re right about one thing,” she said. “If we go with your cockamamy plot, Eleanor couldn’t actually show up because Rosina would recognize her.”

I didn’t let her calling my plot cockamamy slow me down. “But she
would
know exactly where her victim would be camping. So . . . so . . . she popped into the gas station on her way out here to make an untraceable call to say she couldn’t make it. Then later she made a second call to arrange their meeting, maybe claiming whatever had caused her to cancel had been resolved and she still wanted to come out. Then she snuck around in the dark, helped herself to the coven’s knife, and met up with Rosina in the corn maze. She could have scoped out the camp ahead of time, deciding the corn maze was the best place to commit murder. Why not? It’s closed up after dark, no lights, so nobody was going to come strolling along and interfere with her plan.”

“That still doesn’t explain the pentacle in Al’s house,” Patti had to go and say. What a spoilsport!

“A minor detail,” I said, before remembering what Hunter had said about not substituting wishful thinking for actual facts.

Patti shook her head in my direction. “It’s a reasonable theory, but one of many. If Al didn’t do it, my bet is still on a witch, probably that new neighbor of ours. In fact, the more I think about it, the more likely it becomes. Those two witches could have been fighting to the death for power.”

By now we were in the back parking lot of The Wild Clover. Neither of us made a move to get out of the truck.

“It’s sad,” I said, “that you make that sort of statement simply because you don’t understand them.”

“Everybody in town thinks the whole group is guilty of controlling Al with some kind of hex and making him do it. It isn’t just me. But they are all wrong. Al didn’t kill Rosina. One of the witches did.”

“The locals used to blame you for everything, too, when you were new in town. That’s what they do. They look for an outsider to take the rap, and if they have to blame the witches for Al’s actions, they will. You notice nobody around here suspects Greg. That’s because he’s from these parts.”

“What did they blame me for?”

“Never mind.” I had more than twenty examples in mind and at least half of them were true. “That was a long time ago.”

“
You’re
looking for an outsider to take the rap,” Patti pointed out.

“But my suspect has a perfect motive.”

“So does that new neighbor. So does every last one of them.”

“Oh yeah? And what would their collective motive be?”

“Power and control. People like that don’t have feelings like you and me.”

“People like what, Patti? See, there you go again. Making ridiculous assumptions based on outdated perceptions. The real truth is that you’re afraid of what you don’t understand.”

“At least my suspects are real.”

“And mine is imaginary? I just heard my suspect’s voice on the phone. What about that?”

“Yours wouldn’t have had access to Al’s house to plant evidence.”

We were both getting worked up. Me, because I had a new angle to explore, one that absolved the coven members as well as Al and Greg Mason. I really wanted Al back on the farm doing what he does so well. And I’d met the group of women and hoped they’d work out their differences without curses or murders. It would be so simple if the killer were an unknown, someone who hadn’t been inside my store and inside my life.