The Magic of Murder (10 page)

Elvira sat up on my wingback chair, watching. With constant mews, she seemed to tell me,
Enough already. You’re wasting time. Gotta work a spell that’ll keep us both safe.

When I couldn’t ignore her any longer, I said, “Well, if you’d help me instead sitting there, maybe I’d get this done.”

She screwed up her face.
What am I, a maid?
she seemed to say.

By six-thirty, I was too exhausted for any more cleaning. The physical work had taken the edge off my fear, though it hadn’t completely calmed it. I stood in the center of my living room and surveyed the damage. A large hole was in the center of my carpet, and no amount of scrubbing had erased the black burn marks running like cat paws across the line where the small fire spread. Even if I could get the marks out, I knew nothing would erase them from my memory. The carpet would have to be replaced. One of the walls showed a spatter of whatever liquid had been in the wine bottle. A couple of coats of paint would take care of that.

The bottle Roger carried from my house…
A recollection of what the bottle looked like rattled like a loose marble in my skull. I stopped stock still, my hand on my mouth. What was left of the label on the bottle
—
something about it was familiar. Where had I seen the label before? No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t recall. Still, I had to tell Roger. The label might be a clue.

I opened my front door and poked my head out. The sun had only periodically peaked though gray clouds all day. Now, like me, the sun had grown tired from all its work, and decided to go home for a nap. In other words, it
was pitch dark. Neither the moon nor any stars hung overhead. I leaned to look for the Trailblazer in the
driveway next door. Roger hadn’t returned yet.

“Damn, where are you?” I muttered. Alone on a black night, I imagined Jimmy’s faceless killer waiting in the dark for another chance to silence me. The spider of fear again crawled on my spine.

Something rubbed against my leg. I had reached step three: blind panic.
Ohmigod! He’s in my house. He’s got me!
I held the storm door open. I was ready to dash into the street in my pajamas and boots and run as fast as I could to the precinct where Roger worked. Yes, the precinct was a good ten miles away, but fear would be a tailwind.

As I bent with one arm forward and one arm back, as if I were a runner in starting blocks, my eyes turned down. Elvira had wound her body around my leg.

Shaking with relief, I said to her, “Okay, you win. Anything has to be better than the way I feel.”

I slid the chain over the double-latched door, and settled at my desk with Sarah Goode’s book. “There must be something in here to help get me through tonight,” I said as I opened the cover.

It didn’t take long to find my ancient relative’s thoughts on the matter.

11 May, in the year of our Lord, 1692.

I have received a message. George Burroughs was arrested last week in Maine. In a dream I saw
him there. It was where he fled after those wretched
children swore against him an oath they saw him cavort with the Evil One’s servants. He did not dance with the Devil, but with me. Yet, in fear for their souls, they call his ministrations witchcraft. Nay, it is not, but only plants combined he offered those children. It was I who taught him to use those plants. And were it wrong, would the good God have given us these plants to heal our spirits? I believe not, but I daren’t say a word in my dear George’s defense lest those children next accuse me. What horrid times these be, when all strike out against what they cannot understand and call it evil. Yet, never within recollection has it been
otherwise. And though I know it is not Satan’s work I do, I live with a deep fear. Wagging
tongues may yet place me in the jailer’s keep.

Ah, this fear. When I walk in Salem town, I do so at night lest the bailiff stop and question me, and in questioning learn of my skill with plants. Courage do I need to face these troubled days, and so I will carry a stalk of mullein whence I go…”

I glanced up from the book.

“Mullein?” I asked Elvira. “What in heaven’s name is mullein?”

She didn’t answer. I suspect the cat was as stumped as I.

I went to the bookshelves.
Merriam Webster’s College Dictionary
leaned against my copy of
Roget’s Thesaurus
. This time I found an answer in the heavy volume.

“A wooly-leaved Eurasian herb of the snapdragon family,” I read aloud, “including some that are naturalized in North America.”

I turned to Elvira. “Where am I gonna get snapdragon at this time of year?”

She glanced toward the telephone.

“You’re right,” I said. “Rebecca would know.”

As I reached for the phone, I heard a sharp rap on my door. I jumped back. Oh, how I jumped. I tripped over one of the stools by the kitchen counter. When I landed on my rear and kicked the stool, it skittered then toppled to the tile floor. The clatter might have been heard as far away as Ellicottville.

“Emlyn! Are you all right?” Roger shouted from outside.

What was
he
frightened about? It was I who just broke multiple bones. “I’m okay,” I groaned, “though I might be crippled for life.”

“C’mon, let me in!” He still sounded concerned.

I pulled myself up and limped to the door. “All right, all right, I’m coming.”

Roger was on my stoop, a pizza box from Michael’s Restaurant in his hands. By way of greeting, he scolded, “I thought you agreed to stay at my place.”

“Uh-uh. You said I’d stay there, I didn’t.” He was here at last. I was able to pretend I hadn’t been afraid.

With his face creased in an expression that could have been nothing short of frustration, he shoved the box at me. “How am I gonna protect you if you won’t listen?”

I turned my back. “I had to clean up.”

“You could’ve waited till morning. I would’ve helped.”

“Didn’t need help.”

He shook his head. “You’re hopeless, you know that?”

“Come into the kitchen,” I said. “I’ll get us something to drink.”

He went into the living room instead, setting the stool back on its legs as he passed it. “How did you fix the window?” he asked.

“I called Fred Silbert.”

He stormed into my kitchen, and stood, hands on his hips, glaring at me. “Didn’t I tell you not to let anyone in?”

“It was just Fred,” I said.

He took me by my shoulders. “Until we catch the guy, you can’t trust anyone. You hear me?”

It was hard to be annoyed with a man who worried this much about me. I suppressed a smile, and brushed past him, carrying the pizza to the living room. When I placed it on the coffee table, I said, “Make yourself comfortable. Turn on the TV. There must be a ballgame of some kind on. I’ll get plates and be right back.”

The next thing I heard was a multitude of voices cheering from my living room.
Someone must have done something good,
I thought.

“The Sabres scored!” he called to me. Or maybe he said it to the television.

When I returned to the living room, I saw Roger on the sofa, his shoes off, his legs stretched out on the coffee table. Elvira was curled up next to him, her mouth turned up in contentment. I circled the table, and settled next to him with my hand on his chest and my head on my hand.

He leaned over, stroked my cheek, and kissed my forehead.

A soft purr floated up from the sofa. It didn’t come from the cat.

This is sort of nice,
I thought.
I could get used to this.

And maybe get used to where it might lead?

Chapter Eleven

Sarah’s Book of Shadows

 
A
fter some minutes of prolonged kisses and thoughts about perhaps continuing this upstairs, I pushed away from Roger, and shook my head. “I can’t do this,” I said. I wanted to go on kissing him. More than kiss him. I couldn’t. Damn Kevin for leaving me in this twixt-and-tween state!

Roger understood my struggle. “It’s okay,” he whispered, and kissed me once more.

I moved to my oversized chair with a slice of pizza and a glass of beer. He again rested his feet on the table.

I have no idea who won the hockey game. The stress of the day caught up with me. With my legs pulled up and my eyes drooping, I nodded off. The next thing I knew, it was morning. I awoke to soft snores instead of to my alarm clock. Roger was stretched out on the sofa under my afghan, with Elvira still curled up next to him.

It took me two tries to sit up. One reason was because my muscles were stiff from sleeping in a chair. The other reason I struggled: I was covered by the rose-colored quilt from my bed. Either I had walked in my sleep, taken the cover and, deciding the chair was a comfortable spot to finish the night, returned downstairs. Or more likely, Roger, bless him, had fetched the quilt so I wouldn’t be cold.

At last able to untangle myself, I slogged to the kitchen to put up coffee. Then I stumbled upstairs to the bathroom to brush my teeth—I didn’t want to greet my hero with morning breath.

Ten minutes later I was back downstairs, ready to straighten out the living room. When I reached for the pizza box, I froze. On the table, next to Roger’s empty beer bottles, was Sarah Goode’s book.

My hand went to my mouth. What had I been thinking? Clearly I hadn’t been. If I had, I wouldn’t have left the book on my desk where he could find it. Damn! It was one thing to tell Roger of my heritage. Detectives demand evidence and I’d given him only words. He’d marked those off to my being scared silly. I had an out. Now he had seen the evidence, and because of his total disbelief in the power of magic, he must have concluded the Goodes, from first to last, were loonies.

While I stood, eyes unfocused, imagining what my life would be like after he drove me to the Buffalo Asylum, I heard his sleepy voice say, “That makes for interesting reading.”

I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic.

Elvira leaped from the sofa, turned, and glared at Roger. It was as if she told him,
Don’t you dare say anything derogatory about Sarah!

I can only imagine the five or six shades of red of my face turned. “It…it’s about my family,” I stammered.

He sat up, rubbed his eyes. “Quite an ancestor you have.”

I waited to see where he would go with this.

He glanced at the front window Fred Silbert repaired. “Plants and hoodoo,” he muttered. His head tilted, one brow raised and one eye closed, he added, “You don’t really think that stuff will protect you?”

Feeling like a schoolgirl who’d been called to the principal’s office, I began to nod but stopped.

As if to say,
Damn right it will!
Elvira finished my nod.

“Come on Emlyn, this isn’t a Harry Potter story,” Roger said. “And you’re not a child.”

I pulled at the waistband of my pajamas (I’d been in my PJs yesterday when I ran from my house, and one thing or another, I hadn’t gotten dressed since).

He reached for my hand.

I pulled back, grabbed Sarah’s book, and held it to my breast.

“You’re pouting?” Shaking his head, he laughed. “What am I gonna do with you?”

‘Gotta love me’, would have been the obvious answer. But at the moment, nothing was obvious. Even if it were, the thought of how nice it might be if he
did
love me, left me mute.

He leaned forward with his hands in his lap. His posture
was supposed to convey the idea his next pronouncement would be entirely reasonable. “The only thing that’ll keep you safe,” he said, “is for us to catch the guy who killed Jimmy.”

I finally found my voice. “I agree.”

“You do?” He sounded surprised I’d given in so easily. Then, as if struck by the thought my compliance came too easily, his eyes became slits. “What’s going on in your mind?”

“I said I agree with you, and I do. The only way I’ll be safe is if Jimmy’s killer gets caught.” I held out Sarah Goode’s book. “So, Woody will go about it his way, and I’ll go about it mine.”

He stood up to his full six foot height. His turtleneck sweater and brown slacks were creased. “Emlyn—”

“Coffee’s ready,” I said. “I’ll get you some.”

“Emlyn,” he said again, drawing my name out even further.

Still holding the book, I turned on my heels, strode to the kitchen, and poured coffee into two mugs.

“You take milk and three spoons of sugar?” I stirred them into his mug.

For a minute, I stood at the sink, gazing out the window. Another overcast day. Cars crawled through the slush on River Road.

Roger came up behind me so quietly in his stocking feet, I bumped into him and nearly spilled his coffee when I turned around.

“Sit. Drink this while it’s hot,” I said. I’m sure I sounded far braver than I felt.

When we were both settled at the round dinette table, I
said, “I don’t know what information Woody’s got.
Whatever he knows, he’s not moving fast enough. Look at what happened yesterday. If it weren’t for you, I might be dead now.”

“Not really,” Roger said. “That Molotov cocktail was so poorly made, you would’ve stomped the fire out before it did real damage. Still, why give the killer another chance to get you?” He blew the steam from his coffee and sipped it.

“Yesterday I wasn’t doing anything and someone tried to kill me. Who’s to say the killer won’t get me even if I stay locked in my house?”

I mimed throwing a Molotov cocktail through my window. “If I’m gonna get killed, I’d rather it happen while I’m doing something about it.”

He peered at me while he formulated a response.

I didn’t give him a chance. Pushing the leather-covered book across the dinette table, I said, “That’s what Sarah would have done.”

He shoved the book away, as if he might be stung by a swarm of hornets if it got too near.

“If you read it, you’ll know I’m right.”

He put down his mug, and raised his hands in mock surrender. “You’re impossible.”

I smiled at him. “That depends on your perspective, doesn’t it? From where I sit, Sarah’s approach seems like my best defense.”

He stretched his arm over Sarah’s book to take my hand. “If you insist on doing this, I’m going after the killer
my
way.”

The big guy had just one-upped me. He’d told me if I used magic, he’d use a gun.

“You can’t,” I argued. “Woody will have your badge.”

“Not if the guy can’t talk when Woody finds him.”

I stared at Roger. Was he serious? Had I given him an excuse to disobey his boss? My stomach began to churn.

His face broke into a smile.

I let out my breath. He was playing with me.

Making his voice sound like an old-time gangster, he said, “Okay, copper, where you gonna start?”

I stared at him with my mouth open. He
wasn’t
playing. He wanted to teach me a lesson and he was right. I hadn’t thought further ahead than reading more of Sarah’s book to get some ideas. I didn’t have time for reading today, though. With a glance at the clock nailed to the soffit over my sink, I pushed back from the table. “I’ll figure out where to start later,” I said. “I’ve got to get to Main Street Books. I have a book signing in two hours.

“You’re gonna put yourself in the middle of a crowd of strangers?” He sounded shocked. “I know the store.”

“You do, huh?”

“Hey, I read.” Now he sounded as though I’d insulted him.

Might as well really do it. “Do tell?” I said.

“Yeah. And I even buy books. That’s why I don’t want you at Main Street Books. Someone hiding behind one of their stacks could pick you off at his leisure.”

I hitched up my pajama bottoms. “I promised I’d do the
signing.”

“And you never break a promise?”

I stuck my chin out. “Never.”

He sighed, and rose from the table. His square jaw set, he said, “Let’s go then.”

“Where?”

“I’m going with you.” His tone said he’d brook no argument.

I snapped my waistband. “Think I ought to get dressed first?”

With a toothy grin, his eyes traced my body from my toes to my face. “I don’t know. I’ve kind of gotten used to seeing you this way.”

I planted a playful slap on his cheek. “Pig.”

He laughed. “Nah. I’m just a guy watching a good-looking dame.”

As I climbed the stairs to my bedroom, he called after me, “Might not be a bad idea, you being out there. If the guy kills you, I might catch him. Do that, Woody can’t get pissed at me for working the case—I’ll tell him you invited me to your book signing.”

I hung onto the banister at the top of the stairs, and thought,
Great, I’ve set myself up to be bait.