The Witch and the Dead (3 page)

Ve glanced out the window in the direction of the garage. “Do you think he's been out there this whole time?”

We sat in silence for a moment, pondering that scenario.

“The bones certainly looked as if they'd been there for a while,” I finally said, “but wouldn't you have stumbled across them by now?”

Ve lifted her shoulders in a who-knows kind of way. “I can't remember the last time I was in that corner of
the garage. Most of the stuff that's back there belonged to your grandparents. I've never had need to move it.”

“Surely you would have smelled him decomposing,” Harper said matter-of-factly.

I suddenly felt queasy.

“Perhaps not,” Aunt Ve replied. “The garage is detached and solidly built. I hardly ever go in there. I spent the end of that month in Ohio with Derrie, so I didn't need my Halloween decor. I wouldn't have gone in there until Christmas, for my decorations. If I smelled something odd, I might have thought a mouse or squirrel had somehow been trapped inside. . . . It was so long ago that I can't recall.”

I shifted to face my sister. “It was also heading into wintertime. If temperatures were low enough, wouldn't that have affected decomposition?”

Harper slowly nodded. “It would have slowed it down.”

“It was unseasonably cold that month,” Ve said. “That whole winter, actually.”

“When was the last time you cleaned or emptied the whole garage?” Harper asked as she continued to pet Tilda, who was still (astonishingly) allowing it.

“Heavens.” Ve tapped her chin with a finger as she thought about it. “The last time it was thoroughly emptied and sorted was when your mother moved to Ohio. That was a few years before I met Miles.”

We let that sink in.

It was a sobering declaration. I said, “Then, yes, I'm guessing he could have been there the whole time.”

Ve shuddered.

My mother said, “The question in my mind isn't necessarily how long he has been in the garage. It is
why
he is in there.”

“Obviously, someone dumped him there so Ve would get blamed for his death,” Harper said. “Probably
someone who doesn't like Ve very much, since it's a cruel thing to do.”

I thought so, too.

My mother glanced my way. “You'll look into it?”

It wasn't so much a request as an order, and not from my mother but from the Elder. I'd been working under her direction as a Craft investigator for almost a year now, looking into criminal cases within the village that involved our magic in one way or another. Though Miles wasn't a Crafter, Aunt Ve was.

I nodded. It would be my first case knowing the Elder was my mom, and I kind of liked knowing that I was working for my mother. I was a big believer in family businesses.

“Good,” she said with a smile. “The sooner we can figure this out, the—”

In a blink, she dissolved into a cloud of sparkles that narrowed into a thin contrail that shot out the open window and disappeared.

A second later, there was a tap at the back door before it swung open, its hinges creaking. Missy jumped to her feet and ran off, barking at the visitor.

“Harper?” Marcus called from the mudroom.

“In here,” she said, tearing her gaze from the window. She stood up and went to greet him.

I glanced at Aunt Ve. Concern deepened the fine lines of her face as she bit her fingernails.

“Don't worry, Aunt Ve,” I said, trying to reassure her. “We'll figure out what happened.”

She steadily held my gaze. “Darcy dear, that's what I'm afraid of.”

T
wenty minutes later, I took Missy outside to the side yard, leaving Ve, Marcus, and Harper inside, mapping out a legal course of action for my aunt should she need it.

When I had questioned Ve as to why she worried that Miles' case
would
eventually be solved, she'd given me only a vague answer of having bad feelings about the matter.

I wasn't sure I believed her.

Which had left
me
unsettled, wondering if Miles' skeleton was some sort of bony Pandora's box that would have been better left undiscovered.

Over the fence that divided Aunt Ve's property from the yard next door, a beautiful scarlet macaw named Archibald, Archie for short, poked his head through an opening in the iron filigree of a large, ornate cage. The tall gazebo-like structure took up nearly an entire
corner of the yard, and it had been there so long it appeared as though the yard had adopted it as its own. English ivy that continually needed pruning twined around iron curlicues at the base of the cage, and moss grew on its northern side. Protected by a waist-high fence, the enclosure sat close enough to the sidewalk that tourists often lingered, enraptured by the colorful bird's perpetual need to put on a show.

Archie cleared his throat and said in deep, somber tones, “‘And now there's evil rising from where we tried to bury it.'”

Despite the fact that I wore a sweater, goose bumps rose along my arms as I walked over to the cage. The quote, I was quite sure, had been deliberately chosen to reflect the grim discovery of the day.
“The Dark Knight Rises,”
I declared.

“Curses!” Archie exclaimed, his feathers ruffling in dismay.

Lately, he'd been on the losing end of our long-standing movie-quote trivia game, and he wasn't taking it too well. His ego bruised easily.

I kept my body angled, facing the back of the yard, so the gawkers who remained on the village green couldn't witness me having a conversation with the vibrant scarlet macaw.

What they didn't know—unless they were also Crafters—was that Archie was no ordinary bird. He was a familiar. Once upon a time, he'd been a London theater actor, but that had been more than a hundred years ago. He'd eventually ended up here in the Enchanted Village, but his love of performing had never left him. These days, he favored singing the soundtrack for
The Sound of Music
to passersby. He was a big Julie Andrews fan, and it was a small consolation to be able to sing the tunes to tourists, because there was no role for him in Evan's production.

At this point, I wished Evan would write him in. A witch could take only so many renditions of “Do Re Mi” before she lost her mind.

Fortunately for all, mortals have never suspected that the charmingly long-winded bird was anything other than a parrot who watched a lot of TV.

“Did you know him? Miles Babbage?” I asked Archie as I watched Missy roam the yard, chasing after newly fallen leaves.

It had been a long summer, a true New England gift, and the trees had only just started to turn colors with the drop in temperature. The climbing red roses that gripped the arbor above the side gate had finally begun to brown. Soon enough the grass would be littered with discarded petals. Before long, everything would be covered in snow.

“Yes. What an uncommonly vile creature he was.” Archie had a deep baritone voice and a rich British accent that lent an air of authority to anything he said.

“He wasn't that bad looking,” I said. “Or was there something else you're basing your opinion on?”

He huffed in outrage. “Do I seem the type to judge a person's character on appearances alone? 'Tis the height of shallowness.”

I raised an accusatory eyebrow.

“Oh, fine. It's rather true. I'm nothing but a puddle of superficiality,” he conceded with reluctance. “However, I judge Miles not upon his countenance, but because he was a callous lothario who mocked my performances relentlessly.”

In all honesty, the mocking alone had probably sealed the less than stellar evaluation.

Missy caught a leaf, pounced on it. Then she spotted another falling and chased after that one instead. She seemed to be acting like her old self. Maybe I could hold off on that vet appointment after all.

I leaned against the fence. “I don't suppose you have any theories about how Miles ended up in Ve's garage?”

His gorgeous plumage, with its deep reds, saturated blues, and bright yellows glowed in the sunshine. “Alas, none. No one seemed to openly despise the man. Well, except for me. I am an excellent judge of character, I might add.”

I couldn't help smiling. “Did
you
stick him in Ve's garage?”

He laughed, a deep, throaty chuckle. “If only. Did I mention the mocking?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a shadow in the window of the house behind Archie, where he lived with Terry Goodwin. “How did Terry feel about Miles?”

Craft familiars belonged to no one, but many had caretakers. For Archie that person was Terry, a Numbercrafter who worked from home as a CPA. Rarely leaving his house, he was an elusive Elvis look-alike and also notoriously nosy. He was almost always peeping out a window.

Terry also held the distinction of having been Aunt Ve's first husband. And very nearly her fifth. Their attempt to rekindle their relationship this past spring had failed, due mainly to Ve's monogamy issues. They ran deep. Ocean deep.

Fortunately they both rebounded quickly. Terry with his second ex-wife, Cherise Goodwin, whom I counted as a dear friend, and Aunt Ve with Andreus Woodshall, whom I counted as someone I couldn't trust.

Archie fluffed his wings and sidestepped along a branch inside the cage, an enclosure that was purely for display. He could come and go as he pleased. As he edged as close as he could to me, he whispered, “Although Terry was married to Cherise at the time, once word leaked that Ve had eloped and had no memory of
the union, it is my belief that
if
Miles had returned to her I highly suspect he would have disappeared again quickly. Knowing Terry as I do, trust me when I tell you Miles would not have been found a second time.” He sidestepped away again.

Terry was the protective sort. I knew that firsthand, as he'd come to my rescue a time or two in the past. I had the feeling it was the root of his nosiness. He was the village guardian. “But it
didn't
happen that way?”

“He didn't know of the marriage until well after the fact. Ve kept a tight lid on the matter. It might never have been known except she had to eventually place a notice of divorce in the local paper. It was the only way to proceed with the dissolution since Miles couldn't be found.”

“I don't suppose you have the names of any of the women Miles had been seeing?” I asked. “Ve said he was something of a ladies' man.”

“It's true, he was regular Casanova. There's no accounting for taste,” he squawked. “However, now that you ask, I do recall one relationship in particular. . . .”

“What is that twinkle in your eyes?”

He fluffed his wings and loftily said, “How badly do you want to know?”

Knowing this game well, I sighed. “What's your price?”

“A role in Evan's play.”

“Impossible.”

He pressed a wing to his chest and weakly said, “My memories . . . they're fading . . .”

I gave him a wry grin and sang, “‘We extort, we pilfer, we filch and sack . . .'”

With a groan, he hid his head under his wings. His deep voice rumbled out. “I know it. I know I know it. . . .” He hummed the melody; then he popped his
head out.
“Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl!”
Wiping a wing across his brow, he added, “My love of Johnny Depp is deeply ingrained.”

“I know. As are your piratelike traits.”

“I rarely filch,” he protested. “Extortion, however, comes in handy from time to time. As in right now. When one wants a role in the village play . . .”

“Good grief. Fine. I'll see what I can do with Evan, but I cannot guarantee a stage role. Deal?”

He let out a whoop. “'Tis a deal.”

“Now, spill.”

He chuckled low and deep. “All right, all right. Miles had quite the scandalous affair with none other than . . .” He paused dramatically.

“Archie.”

With a tinge of glee, he said in a rush, “It was Dorothy Hansel Dewitt!”

My eyes widened. Dorothy? The wickedest witch in the village? “No way!”

“They were perfectly suited, in my humble opinion. Of course, she was Dorothy Hansel back then, and had left her husband to be with Miles. It was all wickedly salacious. She and Joel Hansel eventually reunited, but their marriage was touch-and-go for a while.”

Dorothy Hansel Dewitt was a witch I could do without. We hadn't gotten along since the day I moved to the village. Much of our animosity for each other had to do with my dealings with her daughter, Glinda, which were complicated to say the least. But part of it, I suspected, was simply because Dorothy enjoyed causing trouble.

Missy let out a happy yip, and I turned to find her racing toward the man walking through the backyard from the direction of the garage on the other side of the house.

He bent and gave Missy a hello, then glanced up at me and smiled.

Archie sighed theatrically.

Or that might have been me.

I smiled back at village police chief Nick Sawyer.

He was dressed in his uniform of a black polo shirt and khaki pants, and he also wore a lightweight jacket embroidered with an Enchanted Village Police Department logo on its sleeve. His dark hair was a little longer than usual, curling up at the ends around his ears, and his deep brown eyes never looked away from mine as he strode over to where I stood.

He cupped my cheek with his warm hand and gave me a quick kiss.

“Sto-o-o-p,”
Archie begged. “I can't take the cute factor. It's making me nauseated. I might hoik.” He started making gagging noises.

I laughed. “You should be used to it by now.”

“You'd think,” Archie replied sarcastically.

Nick said, “Don't worry. I can't stay. I need to track down the village dentist to see if she has any dental records for Miles Babbage. And with that, hopefully a last known address as well.”

“If it is him, dental records shouldn't be too hard to match. Ve showed Harper and me a picture of Miles on their wedding day and he has a chipped front tooth. Does your skeleton have any broken teeth?”

Nick's eyebrows dipped. “The skeleton does have a broken tooth. There was also a wallet in his back pocket with an ID in Miles Babbage's name.”

“It has to be him,” Archie said.

Nick shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. “I think so, too, but I still need to get official verification.” Nick glanced over his shoulder at Ve's house. “I'm going to need a copy of that picture.”

“I'll get it before you leave.” I wrinkled my nose.
“Any idea of how Miles died? Is it too much to wish that it was of natural causes?”

Nick said, “You might actually get that wish granted, Darcy. There are no glaring injuries to the skeleton. No bullet wounds. No stab marks. Until we get more information from the medical examiner, the cause of death is a complete mystery.”