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Authors: Bill Crider

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BOOK: Bond With Death
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Sally said they'd already thought of that. Then she thanked Matthys for whatever help he could give and hung up the phone. Then she told Jack and Vera what had been said.
“I'm sure people will behave rationally,” she finished.
“Yeah, right,” Jack said. “The way they always do. As for me, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if the peasants hadn't already armed themselves with shovels and pitchforks. If you look out your front windows, you might be able to see the torches moving up the street through the twilight.”
Vera laughed and patted Jack's arm. “You really do have a vivid imagination.”
“I stole it from a movie,” Jack said.
“Frankenstein,”
Sally said.
“Young Frankenstein
,” Jack said, pronouncing the name
Frahnkensteen.
“That's the Mel Brooks version of the story, with Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman. I like Brooks's ending a lot better than the original.”
“‘Oh sweet mystery of life,'” Vera said.
Though there was no wine left in Sally's glass, she lifted it as if in a toast and said, “To happy endings.”
“Hear, hear,” Jack said, “and the sooner, the better.”
He and Vera clicked their empty glasses against Sally's.
“Is making a toast with an empty glass bad luck?” Vera asked.
Sally said she didn't know, and that was when they heard the chanting from outside.
 
 
S
tanding in front of Sally's house was a group of people carrying signs that identified them as members of Mothers Against Witchcraft. Or, as one of them proclaimed,
Mother's Against Witchcraft.
The use of the apostrophe was a dying art, Sally thought as she looked out over the crowd of eight or ten people, all but one of them women. The Mothers Against Witchcraft didn't attract a big membership.
The members, however, made up in noise what they lacked in numbers. They brandished homemade signs painted on posterboard and nailed to thin sticks of wood as they chanted, “Witches get out! Witches get out!”
Sally was glad to see that nobody was carrying a pitchfork or a torch.
The leader of the mob, if such a small group could be called a mob, was, of course, Jennifer Jackson. Her sign said,
Get the Witches Out of Our School!
Another woman carried one that said, Witch's
Don't Belong at HCC!
Sally sighed. They really could use some help with their sign-making, not that she intended to volunteer.
The only man in the group was Sherm Jackson. He didn't have a sign, and he stood well behind the others, as if he hoped no one would notice him.
Sally was disappointed in both of them, not that she'd expected
anything better. Still, after she'd explained about the e-mail, about her nonexistent relationship with Sarah Good, and about libel and slander, she'd hoped Jennifer would let things drop.
She should have known better. Jennifer wasn't going to let the facts interfere with what she believed to be true. Sally was getting more and more students like that in her classes. They were always sure that whatever they believed was the truth, and no amount of proof to the contrary could change their minds. If they believed it, it was true to them, and therefore it should be true for everyone. Ralph Waldo Emerson would have been proud of them. But Sally just found them irritating. Maybe they reminded her of her mother.
Sally waited in her doorway, looking from one woman to the other, the way she looked at chatty students in a classroom, not saying a word herself, just waiting patiently until the noise died away.
It was a technique that had served her well in the past, and it worked just as well there at her house as it did in class. The chanting began to decrease in volume until Jennifer Jackson was the only one whose lips were still moving, and very little sound was coming out of her mouth.
Sally waited until there was no noise at all except for the sound of a car driving down the street a block away. Then she said, “Good evening. I don't know what you think you're doing here, but I'd appreciate it if you'd get out of my yard and go back home.”
Jennifer raised and lowered her sign.
“Witches get out!” she said.
Another woman echoed her, but not very enthusiastically, and no one else joined them.
Sally didn't say anything. She just stood there and looked from one face to the other as if she might be memorizing each one. The women began to give one another uneasy glances. Sally knew they were beginning to have doubts about what they were doing, and she thought they would have left within a few minutes if Vera hadn't appeared beside her.
“There's the other one!” Jennifer said. She pumped her sign up
and down. “They're together, having one of their witch meetings! Witches get out! Witches get out!”
Encouraged by her sudden animation, the other women joined her, and the chanting resumed.
Sally could see that a few porch lights were on at houses up and down the street. Her neighbors were standing outside and trying to see what all the commotion was.
“I'm sorry,” Vera said. “I thought I might be able to help, but it looks as if I just got them cranked up again.”
“Don't say anything,” Sally told her. “Just look at them.”
Vera caught on quickly. She'd been a teacher for as long as Sally had, and she knew how to deal with unruly students. She stood beside Sally without moving anything other than her eyes, which roved over the small crowd. Sally had to admire her impassivity, which was even more practiced than Sally's own.
It took a bit longer this time, but after a while the volume of the chanting got lower and lower until Jennifer was carrying on alone. Then she stopped, too.
“You're trespassing on my property, you know,” Sally said into the silence.
It was getting closer to dark now, but she could still see Jennifer's thin, intense face. Her eyes were as brilliant as if she had a fever.
“If you're not gone in two minutes,” Sally said, “I'm going to go back inside and call the police.”
“We're within our rights to be here,” Jennifer said.
Sally wondered who was giving her such bad legal advice. She wished she had her Ladysmith. If she fired a couple of shots over their heads, even Jennifer might change her mind.
Or she might have a stroke.
Or the bullet would hit an innocent bystander a few blocks away.
As satisfying as it would be to see Jennifer Jackson's face as Sally pulled out her roscoe and blazed away, it was better to leave the pistol right where it was.
“We don't want witches teaching at our college,” Jennifer said. “When you resign, we'll leave.”
“You're going to get very hungry out in my yard if you wait for me to resign. And the dew is awfully uncomfortable in the mornings.”
Jennifer thought that over for a while.
“We'll leave now, but we'll be back. You can't corrupt the youth of our town anymore with your satanic ideas.”
Sally hoped Vera would keep quiet. This was no time for a lecture about the fact that Satan didn't figure into the religion of Wicca.
Vera took a deep breath, and Sally nudged her with an elbow. Vera let out the breath slowly and said nothing.
“The thing is,” Sally said, “that there are no witches here, and there are no witches teaching at HCC. You're mistaken about that, even though you don't seem able to admit it.”
Jennifer pointed her sign at Vera.
“We know about that woman's pagan book. You can't deny that it exists and that it belonged to her.”
“Yes, and whoever stole it could be arrested for theft,” Sally said. “Besides, Ms. Vaughn owns quite a few books on different religions.”
Jennifer gave her cohorts a triumphant look, and Sally realized her mistake. To Jennifer, to own a book written about any religion other than Christianity was probably just as heinous a crime as being a witch.
“They're for the courses she teaches,” Sally said, and then she clamped her mouth shut as she realized that was the worst possible thing she could have said.
“Corrupting our kids!” Jennifer said, pumping her sign. “Witches get out! Witches get out!”
“There they go again,” Vera said.
“Sorry. I made the mistake of thinking we were dealing with rational people.”
Jennifer put down her sign and picked up a cloth carryall that had been sitting at her feet. She reached in and brought out something that Sally couldn't quite see. Then she threw it, and an egg splattered on the side of Sally's house.
“She's a total bitch,” Vera said, “and she throws like a girl.”
“Which is a good thing,” Sally said, as another egg hit the wall not far away.
“Are we going to stand out here and get egged?” Vera asked. “Or are we going out there in the yard and beat the crap out of them?”
Sally wasn't sure that was a good idea.
“There are a lot more of them than there are of us. And we'd be lowering ourselves to their level.”
Vera shrugged. “As if I cared about that.”
“What about Jack? We could use a little help since we're so outnumbered.”
Vera looked over her shoulder. “He was right here a second ago. I don't know where he went.”
She sounded a little disappointed, as she'd expected Jack to be at least as macho as she was.
“Maybe he had to use the bathroom,” Sally said.
“Maybe he's just a coward.”
Sally thought about some of the things she'd been through with Jack.
“He might not be Sir Galahad,” she said, “but he's no coward.”
Another egg hit the wall, much closer this time.
“She's getting better,” Vera said. “If we're going to take them on, now's the time.”
“Do you want to call Jack?”
“Two tough chicks like us? I don't think we really need him, do you?”
“No,” Sally said. “Let's go beat the crap out of them.”
So they went out into the yard to do just that.
 
 
“
J
ennifer Jackson is mine,” Sally said as they stepped out of the house. “Do you have any favorites?”
“I'll take whoever I can get,” Vera told her.
The Mothers Against Witchcraft appeared somewhat alarmed when Sally and Vera began to advance on them. They all retreated a few steps, except for Jennifer, who held her ground.
And she held her sign, too, brandishing it like a club.
“You'd better stay away from me,” she said. “I have a right to defend myself.”
“You need to get a lawyer, just to make sure,” Sally said.
She grabbed the posterboard and gave it a jerk. Jennifer was so surprised that she let go of the sign. Sally dropped it to the ground and stepped on it.
“Get off my property,” she said. “Before you get hurt.”
“I'll sue you for assault!”
“I haven't assaulted you yet. But I'm thinking about it.”
While she was thinking about it, Sally looked for Vera, who, as Sally might have guessed if she'd tried, was shoving her way through the other women to get to Sherm Jackson. Leave it to Vera to go for the man.
The women weren't trying to stop her. They were mostly just getting out of her way. Sally didn't think they'd expected a fight.
Instead of looking for Vera, Sally should have kept her eyes on
Jennifer, who reached down for the sign. She grabbed hold of the stick and wrenched the sign from beneath Sally's feet, throwing Sally off balance.
As Sally stumbled backward, Jennifer swung the sign like a baseball bat and hit Sally in the side.
It didn't hurt, since the posterboard had too much wind resistance to allow Jennifer to make an effective swing, and the sign didn't weigh much anyway. But it made Sally angry. Until that moment, she had been perfectly calm, but getting hit by the sign put her over the line.
For just a second she wished that she were a real witch, one with the power to give Jennifer Jackson blood to drink. Since that wasn't possible, she did what she thought was the next best thing.
She stepped up to Jennifer and punched her in the stomach.
It wasn't much of a punch, but it took Jennifer completely by surprise. Her mouth made an
O
of shock. She dropped her sign and staggered for two steps before sitting down on the ground. Hard.
Sally, who was almost as surprised as Jennifer, recovered more quickly. She picked up the sign and snapped the stick in two over her knee. She tossed the pieces to the ground and gave the other women a who-wants-a-piece-of-me-next look.
Nobody did. The women were all backing away, trying to escape. A couple were already getting into one of the cars parked at Sally's curb.
Then Sally saw Vera, who was boxing Sherm Jackson's ears.
Sherm wasn't trying to fight back, and he wasn't doing much to defend himself, either. Vera seemed to be having a wonderful time, and she might have kept it up forever if it hadn't been for the sirens.
Sally heard them faintly at first, but they rapidly increased in volume. As they did, the Mothers Against Witchcraft moved more quickly, dumping their signs and jumping into cars. In less than a minute, two police cars turned the corner and came squealing to a stop, but the Mothers were one step ahead. Three carloads of women peeled away from the curb at almost the same moment the police cars' sirens started winding down.
In fact, only two Mothers remained, Jennifer and her husband, and Sally wasn't really sure that a man could be counted as a mother. Well, she supposed it was possible, metaphorically speaking.
Sherm stood in front of Vera not saying a word. He looked dejected, as well he might, considering how Vera had boxed his ears.
Jennifer sat on the grass, still panting a little as if she couldn't quite catch her breath. Sally allowed herself a small grin. She knew it was wrong to feel good about what she'd done, but she couldn't help herself.
She stopped grinning when the uniformed cops reached her. They didn't look happy.
“All right, what's going on here?” one of them said.
“Trespassers,” Sally told him. “I was trying to get them out of my yard. They wouldn't go, and one of them”—she pointed to Jennifer—“hit me with that sign.”
The cop picked up the half of the sign that had the posterboard on it, turned it over, and read it aloud.
“Mothers against witchcraft,” he said. “What's that?”
Sally didn't think she could explain it, but she didn't have to. Another car arrived at the curb, and Lieutenant Weems got out.
He walked over to Sally, shaking his head. Then he looked up at the darkening sky.
“Why me, Lord?” he said.
Sally didn't even try to answer that one. He wasn't talking to her, anyway.
“Are you going to file any charges?” he asked Sally after his brief communication with the sky.
She was about to tell him that she hadn't given any thought to what she was going to do, but he didn't let her speak.
“No,” he said, “you're not.” He looked down at Jennifer. He didn't offer to help her get up. “And you aren't, either. Get your sign and get out of here.”
Jennifer stood up with an exaggerated look of pain and annoyance. The cop handed her the sign, and she picked up the other piece of it. Clutching the pieces to her chest, she stalked over to join
Sherm, who was now looking more sheepish than dejected. They didn't speak. They just got into their SUV and drove away.
There were still several abandoned signs lying in the yard. Sally wondered if the Mothers could be arrested for littering, but she didn't think this was the time to ask.
Vera came over to stand by Sally and punched her upper arm.
“I guess we showed those candy asses,” she said.
Clearly she felt no guilt about having taken advantage of Sherm. Sally found that she wasn't sorry for hitting Jennifer, either.
Weems sent the other cops away. When they'd left, he joined Sally and Vera.
“You two are a lot of trouble. I shouldn't have come, but I figured I owed Neville a favor.”
“You gave me the third degree,” Jack said, coming out of the house. “Coming over here was the least you could do to pay me back for my pain and suffering.”
“There wasn't any pain. And anyway I apologized for that.”
“Not exactly. I don't think you ever said ‘I'm sorry.'”
“And I'm not going to say it, either,” Weems told him. “I was just doing my job.”
Vera said, “That's what all the jackbooted fascists say.”
Sally didn't know if she was joking or not.
Weems looked Vera over. “I'm beginning to be sorry I came to help you out. I should have let those uniform boys haul you off to the jail for the night. A few hours in the tank might have changed your attitudes. And it would have served you right.”
“I'd like to see you try hauling me off,” Vera said.
“Yeah,” Jack said. “You should have seen her whipping up on old Sherm Jackson.”
“I'll pretend I didn't hear that, just in case the gentleman decides to file assault charges.”
Sally wondered why the police always referred to criminals as
gentlemen
and
ladies.
It had always seemed odd to her that when a police spokesman was being interviewed on TV, he would say something like, “The gentleman we're looking for has already shot two people
tonight, and we consider him very dangerous.” Or, “The lady stabbed her husband thirty-five times.” Sally didn't regard shooting people as gentlemanly behavior, nor did she consider stabbing a particularly ladylike activity, but maybe she just wasn't being politically correct.
“Nobody's going to file assault charges against me,” Vera said. “And if he does, I'll kick his butt.”
“I'll pretend I didn't hear that, either,” Weems said. “But that's it. If I ever owed you a favor, Neville, it's taken care of. We're even.”
Jack nodded. “If you say so.”
“I just did. I have a lot more to worry about than some little neighborhood rumble, and I'm afraid the three of you might be mixed up in it.”
Sally didn't like the sound of that one little bit.
“What are you talking about?” she said.
“You don't really want to hear it, but I'll tell you this much. Your friends who just left will love it if you're implicated.”
That sounded even worse.
“Don't play games with us,” Sally said. “We have a right to know what you're talking about if you think it has something to do with us.”
“Maybe you do have a right, at that. I guess I can tell you. You'll be reading about it in the paper tomorrow anyway. You remember your friend Curtin?”
“How could we forget?” Jack said. “But he wasn't our friend.”
“Yeah,” Weems said. “I know that. I also know that he didn't die of natural causes.”
Sally had been afraid that might be what Weems had to tell them.
“How did he die, then?”
“It wasn't a curse, if that's what you're wondering. Maybe it was supposed to look that way, but thanks to some smart police work, we figured it out.”
“Figured what out?”
“That Curtin was poisoned,” Weems said.

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