Murder Most Witchy (Wendy Lightower Mystery) (22 page)

“Remind me to take away that key,” she grumbled.

Ian was the first to notice that something was wrong. "Wendy, what happened?"

When she opened her mouth to speak, nothing came out. She swallowed over the dry lump that had settled low in her throat. "There's been another murder."

Magda leaned over the table. "Who?"

"Derek."

Magda's hand flew up and landed over her mouth but not before she let out a little squeak.

Ian's face was drawn and serious as he asked, "Is it the same killer?"

Wendy fell into a chair at the table. "I think so."

Conversely, Ian stood up and began pacing in quick, hard steps through the kitchen. If he was thinking, and Wendy could only assume the movement was supposed to aid ratiocination, he was not thinking happy thoughts.

On another pass by the table, he paused. “Three people killed, and we have nothing,” he slammed his fist down on the table, making Magda jump.

Her friend was holding herself together fairly well, but Wendy could see the emotion she was barely containing. “So unnecessary, Ian,” she snapped.

Ian ignored her and kept pacing. Every few seconds he stopped and looked around, like he wanted to hit something else, but he held himself back.

“I did find out a few things at the museum,” Wendy said. “It has something to do with the exhibit.”

She was met by blank stares from both of them.

“It was the way they died,” she continued. “Hanging, fire, crushed by stones. All the methods of death or torture used during the witch trials here in the seventeenth century. And there was something missing from one of the cases. A ring made from the hair of one of the executed witches.”

“Ew.” This from Magda. “A dead witch's hair. That's foul.” Her expression, pursed lips and pinched nose, elaborated on her disgust.

Ian, on the other hand, merely looked pensive. “A ring of hair,” he said aloud, like he was thinking about the words. “That could be a powerful talisman.”

Chagrined, Wendy admitted that idea hadn't occurred to her. “I hadn't considered that. It makes sense.”

“The talisman could be the focus, or even the catalyst,” he went on, talking to himself as much as to Wendy.

Magda raised her hand, “Uh, hi? Regular person in the room, remember? What is a talisman?”

Wendy turned to her friend. “A talisman is an object imbued with a power from a person or sometimes a place. It can be used to focus a witch's magic.”

“Okay,” Magda said slowly, “it's a magic wand. Got it. What did he mean by 'catalyst'?”

“It's never actually a wand,” Ian put in mid-stride.

“You got the idea though,” Wendy allowed. “Occasionally, a witch will discover their power by inheriting a talisman, usually from a family member.”

“So we're looking for this dead witch's great-great-great grandson?”

“Add in a few more greats, and maybe. It could be something else entirely.” Wendy didn't really believe that, though. The moment Ian had said it, she was certain the ring was a talisman, and based on the Ghoul's kills, a powerful one.

“So how do we find a seventeenth century witch's modern ancestor?”

Wendy rolled her eyes. “You are good at stating the obvious, Magda.” At her friend's downcast eyes, Wendy immediately regretted her sarcasm. She rubbed at her left temple where a throbbing had been plaguing her since she first saw Derek's body. “I'm sorry.”

Magda smiled her forgiveness. “Seriously, though. Wendy, we work in the best local history library on the east coast. Surely we have some resources that might help us track this witch down.”

Wendy sat up straighter. “You're right,” she realized. She had been so wrapped up in the investigation that she had forgotten where her real talents were – her books and her research. She started smiling, too, and the headache eased as she formed a plan.

“Tomorrow, I hit the books.”

Thirteen

The library was closed the next day. The second murder occurring on the premises in a week had made both the police and the board of trustees justifiably skittish. The doors were locked and covered with police tape with a sign that
said, “Closed until further notice.” It made Wendy so sad that her library, her sanctuary, had been violated by this dark magic, but that made her all the more committed to finding the Ghoul. Squaring her shoulders, Wendy went inside.

She wasn't surprised to find the building empty. To cover herself, she had called Milton early that morning to tell him she wanted to look around. He hadn't seemed optimistic but had promised her free reign of the building without official interference.

Usually she found the silence of the building peaceful, but today, she couldn't shake the sensation that there was something sinister more sinister in the quiet. Involuntarily, she shuddered, and then purposefully shook herself to dispel the feeling. It didn't work.

Wendy stood in the center of the
entranceway, studying the stacks in perfectly placed lines throughout the large room. Before even approaching a computer, she checked her own personal records, the ones she kept in her head, of where to start looking for the witch called Hester Cline and her descendants. Wendy knew the catalog better than anyone, and she had a few books in mind that might help her. She moved to Carrie's desk to make a few notes before she started her research.

The desk was pristine, without so much as a pencil on top, so Wendy began opening the drawers to find what she needed. When she pulled out the bottom drawer, she saw, to her utter exasperation, that Carrie had shoved yet another book in at an awkward angle. The librarian in her took over, and she rescued the book, which was very old and bound in delicate leather, from the too small space. When she saw the gash on the binding from the sharp edge of the metal drawer, she actually cried out in dismay.

“Oh, why?” Wendy immediately began examining the book for further damage. That was when she found the marked page. Carrie had actually dog-eared a page in one of the library's antique books.

“That is just inexcusable!” Wendy exclaimed aloud. So caught up was she in her indignation over the book that it took much longer than it should have for her to start thinking like an investigator again.

The book in her hand was the 1693 Town Register – the year of the witch trials and the book that Wendy had restored for the exhibit. Carrie had taken it from its case, sometime since Wendy had been there the day before, and marked a page. Though her eyes were practically itching to inspect the pages, Wendy didn't open the book right away. She would never forgive herself if she allowed further damage to the book, so she carried the book back to her restoration room.

Donning gloves and using a pair of tweezers, Wendy carefully located the marked page. It was
a list of deaths in long cramped columns detailing the names of the deceased, dates of death, and their living relatives. Wendy scanned the page, both expecting a fearing to find one name among the many. She finally found it, near the bottom of the left hand column.

Hester Cline – February 3

              Mary Cline, daughter

It said nothing about why she had died, that she had been hanged by a brutal, ignorant court of men. It didn't outline any of the humiliations or indignities that Hester Cline had been forced to endure. It never mentioned that she was a witch. And yet, Wendy knew that these two short lines in a 300-year old book told the reason why three people were now dead.

Wendy felt numb. She refused to think any further while she left the restoration room and went into her own office. She opened a drawer in her desk that was full of manila files. Personnel files.

Wendy thumbed through a few and pulled one out. The tab, written in her own handwriting, was for Carrie Moore. She flipped open the file and read over the top page. She had to read it a second time before she saw it in the very first line on the internship application.

Full name: Caroline
Hester
Moore.

Wendy sat back in her chair, drained, exhausted, and utterly depressed.

"You know, don't you?"

Wendy whipped around. Carrie stood blocking the doorway, her haunted eyes riveted on the
file in Wendy's hand.

Wendy forced her voice to stay level. "Know what?"

"You know what I am."

The laugh sounded false to her own ears as Wendy tried to quip, "A college student?"

Carrie continued, more like she was talking to herself than to Wendy. "It was this that did it. The second I touched it, I knew."

Carrie held up her hand. On her left ring finger was a dull brown ring. Knowing that it was made out of human hair almost made Wendy gag.

"It was like being alive for the first time when I put it on."

Thoughts ran through Wendy's mind faster than she could keep up with them. The first point, thought probably not the most important, was the ring. "You helped Derek put together the display."

The mention of Derek's name brought a flash of rage to Carrie's otherwise unseeing eyes. "Derek. That
man
."

The way she said 'man,' it sounded more like, 'devil.'

"That's when you touched the ring," Wendy pressed.

Carrie stared at her finger with its circle of dead brown hair. "It was electric. So beautiful." She stroked the circle lovingly.

Wendy fervently hoped that she was talking about the feeling, rather than the ring itself. She had never appreciated the old fashion of keeping locks of hair as mementos. To her, it was just plain creepy.

She had all but admitted to killing Derek. Probably Braun as well. Wendy thought she was beginning to understand why, but there was something that bothered her. Something that didn't fit.

She whispered the next question, "What about Benny?"

Carrie reared back like Wendy had slapped her. "That was an accident."

Wendy couldn't keep the sneer off her face. "It was an accident that you choked the life out of him? It wasn't fast, Carrie. He suffered."

Carrie covered her face with her hands as a ragged sob tore out of her throat. "I'm sorry about Benny.” Then she shook herself and faced Wendy, her arms cocked at her sides. "Now I know that was part of my destiny. I didn't know what I was capable of before Benny."

Wendy felt sick hearing her talk about Benny's murder like he was a science experiment. "Carrie, listen to yourself. This isn't you. Let me help you."

Carrie snarled, "You? How can you help me? I don't want to be an academic anymore, Wendy."

Wendy raised her hands in front of her chest. She felt the sizzling fire working its way down her arms and out her fingertips. The blue crackling fire jumped from her hands. "I can help you, Carrie," she repeated.

"You?" Carried demanded. "I thought I was the only one left."

Wendy let her hands fall to her sides. "There are many of us, Carrie."

"How long have you known?"

Wendy shrugged. "My entire life."

Fire leaped into her eyes. "You've had this power your entire life, and you never did anything?"

"Do anything about what?"

Carrie threw up her hands in disgust. "These men!" she screamed. "They hang us and burn us and press us under rocks until we confess to crimes we didn't commit! You just let it happen!"

That was when Wendy realized that the ring had done something to Carrie. The anger, rage, and hate infused into that piece of hair had changed her.

"You're talking about the trials," Wendy said.

She watched Carrie transform under her very eyes as the remnants of who Carrie had been slipped away.

"They won't stop until they kill us all. You see why I have to do this, don't you?" Carrie had the light of a fanatic in her eyes.

"No, Carrie, I don't. Nathan Braun and Derek were not trying to kill you."

"Nathan Braun was a pig. He thought he could hurt me. The night of the party, he tried."

Wendy shook off the memory of Braun and the mystery woman, who she now knew was Carrie, in the darkness. "He was a pig, Carrie, but that doesn't mean he deserved to die."

"Derek pushed me around, thought I was weak. I showed him," she cackled madly, "I was stronger than him. Squashed him like a bug."

Wendy bit down on her lip. Derek's death had been horrible and painful, all because his ego had led him to treat this young woman like she was worthless.

"They put that picture of her," she was babbling mostly to herself now. "They put her face up like she was some kind of freak."

Wendy remembered the broadside for Hester Cline's execution. The evil, horrible face stared out of the page, the very image of what they called her - a witch.

"They all deserve to die. You don't see it," she raised her fist, ring facing outward, "but I can't let you get in the way."

Wendy felt her skin getting hot and dry. Tiny red and yellow flames erupted under her feet, and Wendy flashed on an image of Nathan Braun's horribly burned corpse. She remembered what Detective Milton said about how quickly the fire had burned. There was no time.

Wendy shook her head. She meant it as she said, "I am so sorry, Carrie."

Before the younger, and far less experienced, witch had processed the apology, Wendy thrust out her hands. This time the blue flames didn't stay safely on her fingers. The electric energy poured from her in an unending wave. Carrie shuddered and shook as the electricity coursed through her body. The energy kept her upright for a few seconds, long after she had lost the ability to hold herself up. Wendy lowered her hands, the sparks died, and Carrie buckled to the ground.

"I got here as quickly as I could."

Wendy looked up at where Ian stood in the doorway. He was looking at the corpse on the floor. Wendy had necessarily been rather short on the phone.

"I called Milton."

Wendy nodded numbly. That had probably been the smart thing to do. She had only thought of calling Ian. While they talked, Wendy stayed in her chair across the room from him, mostly because she didn't trust her legs to hold her up anymore.

He crossed the room to her, and he closed her rigid, frozen fingers into his large, warm palms.

"You didn't have any choice," he answered her unspoken statement.

Rationally, she knew he was right, but she wasn't feeling especially rational. "I should have been able to help her."

"I called Magda about coming to get you. Milton and I will handle this."

She was grateful in the abstract. Ian helped lift her out of the chair and walked her to the front door as Magda was just pulling up.

"Thanks, Ian," Wendy managed.

"I'll come by your place later."

Magda drove her home and helped her inside. Wendy spoke intermittently, rambling a bit about magic and rings made of hair. Magda didn't understand most of it, but she didn't interrupt. Wendy was ensconced on the couch under a blanket with a glass of wine in her hand before she started to feel somewhat normal again.

"So it was really Carrie?" Magda's voice was full of disbelief. "I can't believe she killed three people."

"She really did."

"Even Benny?"

Wendy drank her wine. "She said Benny was an accident. I think he must have been collateral damage when she stole the ring."

"Why Braun and Derek?"

Wendy remembered the venom in Carrie's voice when she had talked about them. "She didn't make much sense toward the end. She blamed them for the trials somehow. She started connecting what happened then with the exhibit, and the exhibit wouldn't have happened without either one of them."

“So, what, they put her great-great grandmother on display, and that meant they deserved to die?”

Feeling suddenly very weary, Wendy stifled a yawn. The wine combined with the strain of powerful magic had left her exhausted. “There was more to it, I think. You remember the way Derek treated her, and I'm pretty sure she was the Hester on Jack Crosby's list of Braun's conquests. They took advantage of her, both of them, and she hated them.”

Magda's face became a study of disgust and pity. She tried to say something, then thought the better of it. She opened her mouth again, and Wendy knew that she was as confused and uncertain about what to think of Carrie as she was.

Whatever she had been about to say was interrupted when the front door to Wendy's little house swung open.

Ian walked in and made a direct line for the couch. The corners of Magda's mouth quirked upward in a smile, and she left with only a brief word of farewell to Wendy.

When they were alone, Ian moved towards her, placing a comforting arm around her
shoulders. “You look like you could use a good night's sleep.”

“I think I could use a week's worth of them.”

“You earned it.”

They sat silently beside one another on the couch, not talking, and enjoying the warmth of each other's presence.

“Now that this is over,” Ian finally broke the silence, “there is something I have been meaning to ask you.”