Wicked Ways: Death at the DuMond (A Cozy Witch Mystery Book 1) (14 page)

I made sure the door to the apartment was double locked. Then I went to my room. It was almost midnight. 

For an instant, a protection spell seemed like a good idea. But the way my magic has been working lately, I thought better of it. I might end up in a worse situation.
 

Porter’s earlier admonition echoed in my mind. I really did need a mentor. I was blindly casting spells in the dark. Sometimes they would work, sometimes they wouldn’t. Sometimes they had gotten me in trouble. And I sure didn’t want to pop up on the radar of the League of Sorcery. They didn’t sound altogether friendly.

Banksy was waiting for me in my room. He leapt out of the chair when I entered. “I’ve been worried sick about you,” he exclaimed. “Where have you been?”

“Long story,” I said. “You didn’t happen to see who left this on the door, did you?” I held the death threat out to him. 

His eyes grew wide. “No, I’m afraid I didn’t.”

“I need you to check out Mrs. Abbott’s place. Let me know if you find anything out of sorts.”

“I can’t go into Mrs. Abbott’s apartment. It’s one of the areas affected by that dreadful exorcism.” Bancroft sighed. “You don’t really think Mrs. Abbott is capable of murder, do you?”

“I think everyone is capable of murder, given the right circumstances.” I told Banksy about the challenges of my day. He didn’t react well.

“I think you’ve pushed this too far.” His worrisome eyes surveyed me. “I’m just going to say it—I’m concerned for your safety. I want you to stop.”

“Stop what?  Stop trying to help an innocent man?” I protested.

“How do you know he’s innocent?”

“I wouldn’t be getting death threats if I was chasing down the wrong leads. I’m getting close, Banksy.”

“I couldn’t take it if anything happened to you. I wouldn’t be able to go on. I would just evaporate, I suppose.” Bancroft hung his head and sulked. Torment twisted his face. If he wasn’t a ghost, a tear would have rolled down his cheek. But ghosts don’t cry.

“Banksy, look at me. Don’t be upset. Nothing is going to happen to me. We’re always going to be together.”

“No, we won’t,” he mumbled. 

“I promise, if I die, I will come back and haunt the DuMond with you.”

“One day, you will leave me. You’ll move on with your life,” he said. His voice was melancholy. “You’ll get married and start a family. Hopefully you’ll live a long and happy life. Then one day, you’ll transition to the other side. Everyone does. And I’ll still be here.” He looked heartbroken. Hopeless.

My eyes filled, and a tear rolled down my cheek. Everything he said was true. It was something  we both had been pushing to the back of our minds. We had become so close. Closer than either of us wanted to admit. I couldn’t imagine my life without Banksy. But neither of us had ever put that fine a point on our situation. He was my best friend. But I began to wonder if my feelings for him weren’t something more than that. 

I tried to stifle those thoughts. He was a ghost. I wasn’t. It would never work.
 

“Banksy, how did you die?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, solemnly.

“How do you not know?”

“The last thing I remember was sitting down for a meal. I’m afraid the rest is a blank.” Banksy drifted away in thought. “That was in 1921.” His face lightened as he remembered the time.

“Have you ever considered the possibility that you were murdered?”

His face tensed again. “That’s preposterous. Who would want to kill me?”

“Maybe that’s the reason you are still stuck here? Once you solve your murder, you can finally transition.”

“I don’t think it works that way. People are murdered everyday, and they seem to transition just fine. Why am I stuck here?”

“Some larger purpose, perhaps?” I said.

“I think my purpose in life is to keep you out of trouble,” he said, smiling. “I guess that’s my purpose in death, actually.”

I smiled back at him. I wanted to give him a hug, but there was that whole
ghost thing
again.

“Well, it’s about that hour where I should do my nightly haunting. And you need some rest.”

“Goodnight, Banksy.” 

“Goodnight, my dear.” He drifted away, fading through the wall. 

I was getting ready for bed when my phone rang. It was Zoe Alexander. “I’ve made a terrible mistake, and I need your help.”

CHAPTER 22

ZOE PACED BACK and forth in her apartment, panicked. I had never seen her this frazzled before. She’d pour a glass of straight bourbon, guzzle it, then pour another. It wasn’t doing much to calm her nerves.

Thunder boomed, and the rain started to patter hard against the windows. The storm was finally here, and it made the situation feel even more ominous.

“Thank you. I couldn’t think of anyone else to talk to. And I figured you were a night owl and would be up,” she said.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I’m in big trouble.”

“What is it?”

“I met a guy.”

“You do that a lot,” I said.

Zoe glared at me. “No, I mean the wrong guy.”

“You do that a lot, too.”

She gritted her teeth and took a deep breath.

“Look, I’m really the wrong person to give you romantic advice,” I said.

“I think he’s trying to kill me.”

I squinted at her, confused. “Why?”

“I think things started to go sour when I mentioned that I would tell his wife about our relationship if he didn’t make a substantial deposit to my bank account.”

“I can see where that would cause a problem,” I said.

“But it gets worse. I think he’s connected to the mob.”

“Go on,” I said. She had my full attention.

“I could’ve sworn I saw him in the building today. He was with another guy, and they left a note on your door,” she said. “I hope you don’t think me nosy, but I took the liberty of reading it. I think it was meant for me. I think, maybe, he got our apartments confused.”

I processed this for a minute. “How did you meet this guy?”

“How does anyone meet these days? We met on the Internet. One thing led to another, and we hooked up.”

“When?”

“The night of the murder.” Zoe’s eyes widened, realizing she was about to get caught in a lie. She sighed, then confessed. “Okay, I have to be honest. I wasn’t with Mrs. Abbott at the time of the murder.”

 
In my experience, the words
I have to be honest
usually precede a lie. This time, I think she was telling the truth. But I was still confused. She was stumbling drunk the night of the murder. I couldn’t imagine that she had been in the condition to entertain anyone that night. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you were so drunk that night, Charlotte and Otto had to help you to your apartment, right?”

“Wrong. This stays between us, okay?”

I nodded.

“I wasn’t drunk.”

“You sure looked like it to me.”

“Charlotte paid me to pretend I was drunk and hit on Elliott.”

My face twisted up. “Why would she do that?”

“Honey, you have a lot to learn,” Zoe said. “I think she wanted to see how Elliott would react to temptation. I am rather irresistible to men.” Zoe admired herself in the mirror, gazing at her curves.

 
I rolled my eyes.

“If Elliott can resist me, I’m sure her marriage will be safe. She just wanted some peace of mind before she tied the knot.”

“So, after Charlotte and Otto left, you connected with Mr. Mafia?”

“He called. Said he was in the neighborhood. I was bored. Why not?”

If I could trust what she was saying, it only strengthened my conviction that Otto was involved with the mob. And the mob had most likely been involved with the death of Mrs. DuMond.

“What’s his name,” I asked.

“Nick Nicoletti,” She said.

“Which family does he work for?”

“How should I know? One of the ones that put people they don’t like at the bottom of the harbor.”

“You didn’t think it odd that a mob guy just
happened to be in the neighborhood
the night Mrs. DuMond was killed?”

“I didn’t know he was in the mob then,” she protested. “Give me a little credit.”

“So, let me get this straight. You saw your mobster boyfriend put the death threat on my door?”

“Not exactly. I didn’t want to wait on the elevator, so I took the stairs. I was coming around the corner from the stairwell when I saw him and another guy. They were walking away from your door toward the elevator.”

“And you’re sure it was him?”

“Well, I didn’t have my contacts in. But I’m pretty sure,” she said.
 

There was a lot of room for error in Zoe’s story. But it was plausible. “So, why did you lie about being with Mrs. Abbott?”

“I didn’t kill Mrs. DuMond. But I didn’t have an alibi. The man I was extorting money from wasn’t likely to vouch for me. Then I ran into Mrs. Abbot. She offered up a convenient story that would cover both of us if anyone started nosing around.”

“And you didn’t question Mrs. Abbott’s motive for fabricating an alibi?” I asked.

“Oh please. Mrs. Abbott wouldn’t hurt a flea.” Zoe
 
sneered, disregarding the notion as preposterous. Her sneer faded, then her eyes grew narrow. I could see she was questioning things.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. Just idle chatter.”

“What kind of chatter?”

“Well, I didn’t take it to mean anything at the time,” Zoe said. “People say things, you know. Things they don’t really mean.”

“What did she say?”

“It was back when Mrs. DuMond first raised everyone’s rent. Mrs. Abbott said she should bake her poisoned cupcakes.” The room fell silent for a moment. My eyes grew wide.

“Of course, I thought she was joking,” Zoe said. “But at the time, I was kind of hoping she would.” A devious smile crept up on Zoe’s face. “I may go to hell for saying this, but I don’t think anyone misses the old bag.”

“I’m sure Elliott misses her,” I said.

She scoffed. “Darling, Elliott is a very rich man now. I’m quite sure that outweighs any sense of loss he may feel. And between you and me, I don’t think they were all that close anyway.” Zoe paused a moment in thought.
 

I could see her trying to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together, but coming up short. Just like I was coming up short. At this point, I was sure of only one thing—that I didn’t kill Mrs. DuMond.
 

The silence was shattered by a knock on the door. Zoe and I stared at each other in terror. It was a little late for unexpected visitors. Zoe tiptoed to the door. She peered through the peephole, then gasped in horror.

She ran back into the living room, eyes wide, shaking. “It’s him.”

“Who?”

“Nicoletti. We’ve gotta get out of here.”

CHAPTER 23

THE POUNDING ON the door continued. Zoe’s eyes darted about the room, looking for an escape route. But there was only one way in or out of the apartment. The front door.

Zoe raced to the window and tried to open it, but it was stuck shut. I dashed to help her. The weather and humidity had expanded the wood. Zoe’s faced turned red and bulged with veins as we strained to pry the window open.

Nicoletti’s muffled voice rang through the door. “Open up, Zoe. I know you’re in there.” 

We finally flung the window open and climbed out onto the narrow ledge. It was a long way down to the alley below. The ledge was slick and wet. I had never really considered myself afraid of heights. But then again, I had never stood on a crumbling, six inch ledge. One that towered several stories above the hard concrete. During a rainstorm. 

“I think this was a bad idea,” Zoe said, clinging to the side of the building. 

“According to the city ordinance, there is supposed to be access to the fire escape from every apartment.”

“Well, there’s not.” 

I heard Nicoletti kick in the door. It splintered from the hinges, crashing to the ground. 

“Go,” I yelled.

Zoe inched her way along the precarious ledge. I followed behind her, trying not to look down. At the far corner of the building was a rusty fire escape. Zoe and I shuffled toward it as fast as we could. 

There was nothing to hold onto. Depressions in the masonry between bricks offered little to grasp hold of. Occasionally, there was a sculpted ornamental protrusion that adorned a window frame. A decorative element, or a gargoyle head, stuck out every now and then. 

Every gust of wind was a near death experience. Zoe was wearing high heel shoes, which made traversing the ledge even more unsteady. My heart was pounding so hard I worried it would knock me off the ledge.

Nicoletti poked his head through the open window. My eyes grew wide. Nicoletti was the short dark-haired meathead from this afternoon. The one that fell flat on his face and lost a tooth. His eyes met mine and narrowed with glee. He smiled a devious, toothless grin.