Murder Most Witchy (Wendy Lightower Mystery) (6 page)

Horn's face turned an unhealthy shade between red and purple, and he opened his mouth to speak, but Milton put a restraining hand on his partner’s arm.

“Thank you, Miss Lightower,” Milton interjected. “We understand that you have had a trying morning, and I'm sure you would like to be on your way. Would you leave your address and phone number with Officer Burns, in case we have additional questions?”

Since it wouldn't serve her purpose to be overtly difficult, Wendy agreed. To her surprise, Detective Milton offered to walk her out.

When they reached the front entrance, Milton held the door for her. “Miss Lightower,” he began.

“You really can call me Wendy,” she interrupted. She wasn't sure why he was insisting on repeating her last name every few minutes, but his next question made that clear.

“Are you any relation to Gerry Lightower?” he smiled.

Wendy sighed. Just her luck that the murder in her library would be assigned to someone who knew Gerry Lightower.

“I think you know the answer to that, Detective. He's my uncle.”`

Wendy wasn't supposed to meet her uncle until the following morning, but the knowing look from Detective Milton following her confirmation of their relationship told her that he would soon know all about Benny's murder. She would save herself a lot of time and trouble if she went over there on her own.

Wendy went to parking lot and stopped short when she saw that it was empty of any vehicles aside from the police cars and incoming coroner’s van. It took her a second to remember that she had walked that morning, and she groaned at the thought of continuing on foot. Her uncle's house wasn't all that far from the library, but it was in the opposite direction to her own little cottage. That would mean a rather long walk home.

The day was becoming as beautiful as the morning had promised. The sky was a clear, bright blue with fluffy white clouds scudding across its expanse. Of course, she couldn’t enjoy it. Benny's dead corpse floated in her vision, marring everything she saw. Every once in a while as she walked, she spread her hands out in front of her face and studied her small, pale fingers. There was no trace of the blue light, but that hadn't erased it from her memory. It had been a very long time since she'd seen that light.

Wendy slowed her steps as she reached a tidy, forest green, single-story house with a white picket fence. The sign was displayed prominently on the gate and read “Lightower Investigations,” in neat block print.

Her uncle had lived and worked in this house her entire life. The sight of it always brought back memories of long summer afternoons when Wendy would come to visit and end up spending hours in her uncle's office, just talking. That had ended eight years ago when she had left North Harbor to go to college in Boston for her Master's degree.

The gate swung open silently and closed itself behind her. She walked up the path and moved to rap her knuckles on the cream-colored front door.

Like the gate, the door opened apparently of its own volition at her slightest touch. Wendy rolled her eyes. Her uncle had a penchant for the dramatic.

“Nice trick,” she called into the empty hallway. That he would be lurking nearby, she had no doubt.

A form stepped out into the hallway, and Wendy stopped mid-stride when she saw, not the familiar form of her uncle, but a stranger. He was tall and young, likely close to her own age. His rich brown eyes were more quizzical than anything as they noted the familiar way she entered into the building. He had thick brown hair that stuck out in places like he'd run his fingers through it, which made him look like an absent-minded professor.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

Wendy stumbled over her answer. Certainly it had been a while since she'd come to visit Gerry, but she was stunned to find a stranger in his house.

“I'm looking for Gerry,” she finally managed to say.

The man smiled, revealing a small dimple in his chin. “He's in the office. Who should I say it is?”

Thrown as she had been by the man's appearance, Wendy was recovering, and more importantly, she remembered what had brought her there that morning. “That's quite all right,” she said, brushing past the man on her way to her uncle's office. “No need to announce me. This can't wait.”

The man opened his mouth, perhaps to stop her, but Wendy was already opening the door to Gerry's inner sanctum. The office hadn't changed in decades. The same tattered curtains and worn out rug covered the windows and floor. The same scuffed
cherry wood desk dominated the space. Even her uncle looked the same, ensconced behind the massive desk with his hands folded across his bulk and a knowing smile on his lips.

“I've been waiting for you.”

Since he said it merely to annoy her, Wendy ignored him. “I need to talk to you.”

“Thank you, but she didn't need a guide to find her way here,” Gerry said, addressing the man behind her, who had evidently followed her into the room. “Have you met my niece? Wendy, this is Ian.”

Wendy turned around and flashed him a brief, distracted smile. She really wanted to put this murder on her uncle's desk and walk away, never to think about the incident again.

When she would have turned back, Ian waylaid her by grabbing hold of her hand. “Nice to finally meet you.” His eyes locked on hers, and she noticed tiny gold flecks in his irises. A pleasantly warm buzzing sensation was emanating from his palm and traveling up her arm.

“Do you think you could get us some coffee?” Gerry's voice jerked her back to reality. With a jerking motion, like she'd been burned, she pulled her hand away from Ian's grip.

“Absolutely,” Ian replied. He kept his eyes trained on Wendy, and she began to squirm under the scrutiny.

When he finally left, she breathed a sigh of relief and turned back on her uncle. “Where was I?” she said, mostly to herself.

“I'm sure I don't know,” Gerry replied.

Despite herself, Wendy smiled. “But you usually claim to know everything. Weren't you saying when I came in that you had been expecting me?”

Gerry widened his eyes in an imitation of innocence. He was a large man, with an expansive girth around his middle, a craggy, pockmarked face, and a hooked nose. His gray, grizzled hair was worn too long and it curled at his neck. Innocent was not a word that suited him, but to look at him then, no one would suspect him of being the most powerful witch on the eastern seaboard. And yet he most certainly was.

“I meant tomorrow. I can't imagine what you're doing here today,” he clarified.

Wendy shook her head but didn't say anything. He wasn't fooling anyone, least of all Wendy who had known him all her life. Gerry Lightower knew everything about everyone, especially about her. It was what made him so very good at his job.

Knowing that allowing him to talk circles around her would just get her muddled, she got straight to the point. “Someone was murdered in the library today.”

“Which library would that be?”

In her irritation, Wendy actually stooped so low as to stamp her foot on the ground. “You know which library. My library.”

“Of course,” Gerry chuckled as though his lapse of memory was an amusing trifle. “How terrible.”

Wendy took a steadying breath. “Gerry, stop patronizing me. I need your help.”

The desk chair creaked as Gerry leaned forward and put his elbows on the worn wooden surface. “Why would you need my help? Murder is a job for the police.”

Wendy heard the door open behind her, and she knew that Ian had returned with the coffee. She didn't know who he was or what connection he had to her uncle, but she decided that if he was there he might as well hear everything.

“I don't think it was a normal murder.”

Gerry scratched at his bristly chin. “What would be a
normal
murder, I wonder?”

Wendy stamped her feet again, not caring how childish she must look. Honestly, her uncle could drive a saint to distraction, never mind a former witch and current head librarian. “You know what I mean,” she half shouted. “I think there was magic involved. That makes it your job.”

“Oh, I see. Well, I'm sorry, my dear,” he smiled apologetically, “but we are completely swamped. I couldn't possibly get involved in any murders.”

Ian held out a cup of coffee in an obnoxious red mug with the words “The Unexplained is My Business” in white block letters.

“No, thank you,” she said, waving aside the cup. She felt anger boiling up within her, rising from her stomach into the center of her chest. Sometimes her uncle was absolutely infuriating. She stood up to storm out of the room.

Gerry called out to her as she reached the door. “Perhaps you could look into it yourself. You haven't forgotten everything I taught you, I trust.”

When she left, she didn't wait for the door to close softly behind her. She grabbed the handle with both hands and slammed it shut.

Four

Wendy was still fuming as she walked out through the gate, which had opened before she reached it. That only made her want to kick the pretty little gate into kindling. Her uncle's little charms, which did everything from turning on lights to opening doors, were his trademark. Why a witch with his abilities felt the need to show off with what he called “parlor tricks” was beyond her.

By the time she reached the street, she was feeling calmer, and much more charitably inclined, toward her uncle. She was even a bit ashamed about her outbursts or temper. Oh well, she thought, she would make it up to him at breakfast tomorrow. He would still be expecting her.

Wendy had a long time on the walk home to think about the conversation with Gerry, and she dwelled more than she should have on his parting remark. He'd been hurt, cut to the bone, when she had announced that she wasn't going to take over the family business. In his own way, he was still trying to convince her to come back.

Lightower Investigations had been around for almost two centuries. Some great-great ancestor had started it in 1802, and it had been run by Lightowers ever since. Wendy was the last one, and the thought of the business shutting down, or worse being run by someone who wasn't a Lightower, was something Gerry simply couldn't accept.

As she walked through her front door, Wendy came to a decision. She couldn't let Gerry's stubbornness be the reason that Benny's killer walked free. She knew it was exactly what her uncle wanted, but if he wouldn't help, Wendy would have to do it herself.

Instead of putting them away once she walked inside, Wendy selected a second smaller key off her key ring. She hovered outside of the small closet door in her entryway for the briefest moment before turning the key in the lock. Without giving herself time to reconsider, she began pulling items off the shelf. First the book, which she handled with as much care as a relic, and then the cauldron were removed from their places. Little spaces of clean wood were left behind in the thick layer of dust as perfect outlines of the missing objects.

Wendy set up everything in the center of the beige carpeting in her living room. She kicked off her shoes and sat with crossed legs beside the cauldron. With exceptional care, she began turning the pages of the ancient book. She had studied the tome from cover to cover at one time in her life, a time that seemed like another life to her. It all came rushing back to her now as she looked at page after page. Somewhere, she couldn't be sure where, there was a spell that would do what she wanted. It hovered at the back of her memory like a dream, and yet she was absolutely sure it was in the book somewhere.

When she found it, she was moving so quickly she nearly flipped right past it. The handwriting was practically indecipherable, but once she figured it out, the directions were as clear as she could have hoped.

Wendy dropped several ingredients into the cauldron in the order indicated. This part of the spell was more like science than magic, all about timing, portioning, and combinations in balance. At the end, she added the single hair from Benny's head, which had made its way home safely tucked away in her pocket.

Wendy took a deep breath and cleared her mind of everything. This part, making her mind blank and ready, had always been a challenge for her. Over the years, she had developed a sort of mental journey, where she walked away from her home, her life, her town in the confines of her mind. She saw herself walking out on the bluffs, towards the ocean, and into a very dark cave. The cave had no light, no sound, nothing at all, and inside this cave she could concentrate.

Once she had her mind blank of everything except the darkness, she began to fill it with emotion. Sorrow, rage, regret, and fear, she picked them out one by one and arranged them like a bouquet. All the emotions that Benny must have felt as his life finally slipped away from him flooded the blank canvas of her mind.

All the best and most impressive magic was based on emotion. Emotion was combined with energy, from herself or the world around her, to make her will happen. In order for this spell to work, she had to live through everything that Benny had felt in his last moments. She hung onto her control as long as she could, but there was a moment when she had to let it go. When she did, the power of the emotions, the energy, the magic knocked her flat on her back.

Wendy bit down on her tongue to keep from screaming. Tears ran unabated down her face, and sobs racked her body. It hurt, and hurt badly. The onslaught of negative feelings was like blitz bombing. There was a moment when she was certain that the magic would tear her apart.

Just when she felt that she couldn't take anymore, a warm, heavy weight landed in her lap. The closeness of her obese cat brought her back to the ground and an image burst through the pain and panic, playing out like a grainy newsreel in her head.

Wendy was back in the museum, a mop in her hands. The monotonous wiping motion felt peaceful and comforting, moving the spongy head back and forth over the tiles. Back and forth, back and forth. A pause to dip the mop in the bucket and back to wiping. The whole night might pass this way. Dip and swipe, dip and swipe.

A loud crash made her look up from her mopping. Ignoring the mounting fear that made her chest feel tight, her feet followed the sound into the back of the museum. Darkness surrounded her. She heard a scraping of metal on metal and the clink of glass.

“Who's there?” she called, but the voice was not her own.

A crushing force, like that of two unseen hands, closed over her windpipe. There was a rope around her neck, crushing out all air and life. She clawed at where she felt the rope with thick, ineffectual fingers, but there was nothing there. No rope, no hands, nothing was there to cut off the flow of precious oxygen. Panic seized her now, making her movements even clumsier. She was choking, being strangled by something, yet no matter how much she grabbed and clawed at the pressure crushing her throat, her fingers felt only the rough, stubbly skin of her neck. She swung out long, gangly arms at the darkness and found only air and emptiness. She fell to her knees as tiny dots of light exploded behind her eyes. There was a moment of excruciating pain as her brain screamed for more oxygen, and then there was only blackness.

Wendy sat up gasping for air and holding her own throat. She ran anxious hands over the area but felt none of the same crushing pressure that had haunted her in the vision. Although the fear began to subside, her heart was racing and her breathing heavy long after the vision had faded.

Benny had died in utter fear and complete darkness. He had never even seen his killer.

A sharp rap at the door made Wendy jerk. Charlie still sat on her lap, his yellow eyes fixated on her tear-stained face with something that looked suspiciously like concern. The cauldron, surrounded by little bags of unidentified powder and herbs, and the book with its strange writing and unusual decorations were not the sort of items that she would easily be able to explain.

“It's me,” Magda shouted through the door. “Open up.”

“Just a moment,” Wendy called. She gave her cat a quick pat on the head. “I'm okay.” Charlie gave her one more long look and then jumped nimbly to the ground.

Moving in a flurry of anxious activity, Wendy gathered everything up in the cauldron and shoved it into the closet, turning the key with more force than was necessary. As she reached for the handle to open the front door, she paused to wipe away the evidence of her tears.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded. She winced as she realized how brusque and rude she had sounded.

Magda swept past her into the room and whirled around, concern etched in every line of her face. Never, in the years they had been friends, had Wendy ever seen Magda look so upset.

“I just heard. It's true then,” she said, and Wendy knew that she hadn't erased all traces of her weeping after all. Luckily, Magda seemed inclined to attribute her emotional outburst to a very natural reaction to discovering a dead body.

“It's true.” Wendy sank onto the couch with a sigh. Performing magic, particularly of the sort that depended so much on emotion, could be very draining, and it had been quite a long time since Wendy had cast any spells at all.

“I'm getting you a cup of tea.” It was one of those impulsive, unhelpful gestures that people tend to make in the face of a crisis. Wendy didn't really want any tea, but she appreciated that it was as good as a hug coming from Magda.

“Thank you,” she smiled at her friend.

While Magda busied herself in the kitchen, Wendy slowly stood up from the couch and crept over to the closet. She opened the door slowly and put most of the items back in their correct places. The book was still open to the page that had contained the spell.

“The Last Breath,” it read in that spiky, illegible handwriting. The spell had been designed to allow a witch to see a person's last moments, and that is what she had witnessed in her vision of darkness and fear. It was Benny's voice that had called out to the dark, and his arms that had reached out to fight an unseen foe. The spell had worked at least, even if it hadn't shown her anything helpful. At least, she knew that she hadn't lost her touch. She immediately shook her head at that thought. Wendy reminded herself that she didn't want anything to do with magic. She almost wished the spell hadn't succeeded, that she had somehow forgotten how to do magic in the last few years.

Then, maybe, she could finally be normal.

She could almost hear her uncle's voice as she relocked the cabinet.

If you don't want to be a witch anymore, his gruff tones inquired, why did it even occur to you to take that hair? Not a very
normal
thing to do.

It was a fair question, and one she had no intention of answering, even to herself.

Magda stayed for over an hour, listening and offering a surprising amount of comfort. Throughout the tenure of their friendship, there had never been any reason for her to be much of a support to Wendy, but she was stepping into the role with relative ease. She had even prepared Wendy a dish of pasta to be reheated later for dinner.

When Magda finally left, Wendy spent the rest of the day keeping herself busy. She went for a long run, weeded her little backyard garden, and cleaned her cottage from top to bottom. When she finished cleaning the underside of the refrigerator, she finally had to admit that there was nothing else to do. She heated up the meal that Magda had left behind and ate quickly. All the while her eyes kept darting over to the closet with its heavy lock and unusual contents.

Wendy sat down on the couch, a book in her hand professing her good intentions, but neither her eyes nor her attention stayed on the pages. She grabbed the nearest pillow and clenched it tightly in a bear hug, willing herself to think of anything else but that closet.

Eventually, though it was only eight o'clock, Wendy got up and went to bed. She lay awake for a long time, tossing and turning, getting tangled up in sheets and blankets. When she finally fell asleep after seemed like hours, she dreamed. Invisible hands reached for her throat as she struggled and fought to reach a lock that only she could open.

The next morning, as though the sun somehow knew what had happened, was grey and gloomy. The clouds overhead blocked out all the light and held out the constant threat of rain. It was drizzling as Wendy left the warmth of her little cottage. She had managed to avoid temptation for the rest of the night and all morning, but she didn't think it was such a bad idea for her to stay away from home today.

When she drove up in her little sedan, Gerry was waiting with a plateful of fresh pastry.

“So you knew I would come?”

Gerry smiled at her. “Don't I always? Come in. There's coffee.”

Wendy followed him inside, and despite her personal conflict, she was very happy to see him. He poured her a cup of coffee, and they sat in companionable silence for a time munching on buttery croissants.

“I never asked yesterday,” Gerry finally said, negligently as though it had slipped his mind and he had only now thought of it, “but are you okay?”

Wendy covered his large, burly hand with her own. In his own gruff way, he was checking on her, and the baking, which was his one non-magical hobby, was an apology of sorts. He knew how much she loved his croissants.

“I'm fine. Thank you for asking.” She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. She honestly didn't know what possessed her to do that. They were not an affectionate family by nature, and she probably hadn't kissed him since she was six years old. She'd meant it though. He was her only family left, and she didn't see him nearly as often as she should.

“Did you know him well?”

Wendy thought for a moment and was saddened when she had to admit that she hadn't known Benny well at all. “He worked in the library, but he worked nights. I would see him sometimes when I came in in the morning if I came in early enough. He was always friendly.”

She thought back to the handful of short conversations that were all the interaction she had ever had with Benny. She knew nothing about his family, his friends, his hopes or his dreams. All she really knew was that he was friendly, and perhaps a bit slow but good at his job. He had seemed to take pride in his work, and she had always appreciated that he attended to all the details around the building. Once she had pointed out a cobweb in one of the back corners, one that no one ever saw because it was behind a rather tall bookshelf. The next morning, not only was that cobweb gone, but every corner in the entire building had been thoroughly swept out that night and was swept again every night afterwards.