Witch at Heart: A Jinx Hamilton Witch Mystery Book 1 (The Jinx Hamilton Mysteries) (14 page)

T
he store felt
like an oasis of calm after my experience with the tomahawk. When I came in the door, Myrtle dimmed the lights and a package of chamomile tea came scooting to the edge of its shelf.

“It’s that obvious, huh?” I said.

The lights dimmed again.

“Thanks Myrtle,” I said. “But the tea will knock me out like a light. I’ll have it tonight before I go to bed.”

I carried the tea box with me into the storeroom to show Myrtle I appreciated her consideration. Rodney stuck his head out from between the liniment cans and wiggled his whiskers at me.

“Don’t you start, too,” I said. “I’m fine.”

As if he needed proof for himself, Rodney held out his paw and motioned me over. When I came close and put out my hand, he scampered up my arm and settled on my shoulder.

“Okay, okay,” I said. “We can hang out.”

I walked over to the chair and sat down, taking out my phone to text Tori and let her know I was okay. My message didn’t mention anything about the vision, however. Some things can't be described via thumb typing. I’d save that story for later when we talked.

Normal activities kept me occupied for the rest of the day except for the fact that Beth hovered two steps behind me most of the time asking endless questions about her impending funeral.

The fact that her casket would hold nothing but bones really bothered her.

“I mean,” she said, “it’s not like I’m going to be looking my best.”

There you go. Conclusive proof. Vanity survives death.

“Honey, I’m sorry to tell you this,” I said, “but nobody is going to be thinking about that and they’re certainly not going to be looking at you. You have to understand that the people who will be coming to the service won’t be there for you. Funerals are for the living.”

Oh my God. Did I just said that? I am turning into my mother.

Beth seemed to be thinking about my statement with the same confused concentration she would have applied to one of those algebra equations where the value of X defies calculation.

“I don't know,” she said finally. “Since I'm the dead person, I think it ought to be all about me.”

Oddly enough, I found that a fairly difficult point to argue.

When I related the conversation to Tori that night over Facetime, she burst out laughing. “God,” she said, “Beth really was the head cheerleader wasn't she?”

I giggled since I knew we were both thinking about Darla Sue Bumiller.

Yes, I know, her name was tragic, and she way over-compensated in her quest to be “fabulous.”

Darla Sue was our graduating class diva, whose crowning achievement in life when last I saw her was the fact that she had been named head cheerleader all four years in high school.

“Now, now,” I said, struggling to regain my composure. “We sound like the passably popular girls, who hate the thoroughly popular girls.”

“Well, duh,” Tori said. “That’s because we do.”

“Tori,” I said, in my best grown-up voice, “we're almost 30 years old. I think we can let old high school grudges go.”

“For your information, I intend to remain 29 for life,” Tori declared. “And besides that, you know as well as I do that we will still hate Darla Sue at our 50th class reunion. Age has nothing to do with our high standards.”

Suppressing another giggle, I said, “Beth doesn’t mean to be self-absorbed about all this. She confided in me that she was killed before her senior prom. I think she's regarding her funeral as her final big event.”

“I’d say
death
was her last big event,” Tori groaned. “At the hands of a completely out-of-place Native American swinging a scary hatchet thing.”

“Out of place is right,” I agreed. “That was the last thing I ever expected to see.”

“Jinksy, you're going to have to be more careful about what you pick up,” Tori said. “You really do
not
have this psychometry thing under control.”

Gee. Ya think?

“I kind of do and I don’t,” I said a little defensively. “Here in the store I can pick something up and sort of make my mind go blank and get a vision when I want to.”

“Yeah,” Tori said, “but how about blocking a vision you don’t want to have?”

“That I can’t do,” I said, “but in all seriousness, I’m not sure I could have stopped this one even if I had tried. It was really powerful. Whoever was holding the tomahawk was breathing hard and I could feel his heart pounding in my chest.”

“Whoa,” Tori said, “that's intense.”

“You have no idea,” I said. “I’ve been trying to get it out my head all day.”

“I don't blame you,” she said, “and we should probably stop talking about it now so you can get some sleep tonight. I'm going to work the breakfast shift, and then leave to drive over. The funeral is at 3 o'clock, right?”

“That's what the funeral director told me,” I confirmed, “but let's get there early, so we can get a seat in the back.”

“You want to get there early so we can get a seat in the back?” Tori said skeptically. “Don't you have that kind of turned around?”

“Nope,” I said. “We need to be able to watch everybody who comes to the service.”

“Come on,” Tori scoffed. “That would be way too easy. The killer isn’t just going to show up at the funeral with a sign on that says, ‘I did it!’”

“I know,” I said, “but I still want to get a good look at everyone’s who’s there. Nothing we’ve learned so far, including the vision I had today, gets us any closer to finding out who killed Beth or figuring out if the same person killed Jane. At this point, I’ll take any clue I can get.”

We said our goodnights, and I quietly transferred Rodney, who had fallen asleep on my shoulder, to the soft confines of his nest box. He let out a cute little rat snore, but otherwise didn’t move.

On my way up the stairs, I called out, “Night, Myrtle.”

A soft chime answered me. I switched off the lights, and she turned them right back on again with a sound effect that sounded very much like maternal clucking.

“Don’t trust me on the stairs?” I asked. “Okay, then turn them off for me when I get up there, okay?”

At the top of the stairs, as soon as I turned the doorknob to step into the vestibule, the lights downstairs went off. And I didn’t even have to do that “clap on, clap off” thing.

The cats, who were all piled up on the couch, woke up for their bedtime snack, but Beth was nowhere to be seen. That didn’t last.

The next morning, I awakened under the usual combined glare of all four cats with the addition of an excited ghost concerned that we were going to be late for her “thing.”

Blinking the sleep out of my eyes, I brought the clock into focus and stifled some very not-nice language. The cats had heard it all before, but I was trying not to swear like a sailor in front of Beth. “Honey,” I said with bleary patience, “your ‘thing’ isn’t for another ten hours.”

As I said it, I swung my feet over the edge of the bed only to be greeted with Beth’s shocked pronouncement, “Does your hair always look like that when you wake up?”

I glanced in the mirror and had to admit I was sporting an epic bed head, which probably meant one or more of the cats has been grooming me in the night. I know that may sound gross to you clueless non-cat people, but those of us in the know take it as a major compliment.

Ignoring Beth’s assessment of appearance, I ran both hands through the tangled mess and achieved at least a semblance of order. We all went into the kitchen where the order of business was: feed the cats so they’d shut up, make my coffee so I could wake up, and explain to Beth she needed to
not
talk to me before the sun was up.

“Oh,” she said. “You’re one of
those
people in the morning. Okay. See you downstairs. Bye.”

If only living people who were being annoying could catch on and blink out that well.

The instant I walked downstairs at 7 o’clock, Beth said, “You’re not dressed for the funeral.”

That would be the funeral that was now 8 hours away.

When the bell on the front door jingled at 10:30 announcing Tori’s arrival, I felt like the cavalry had just arrived.

Beth greeted her with the same critical eye she had applied to me. “You’re wearing pants to my funeral?”

“Would you rather I go in my underwear?” Tori shot back.

If a ghost could blush, Beth would have turned beet red. Instead, her form wavered a little around the edges, which caused Tori to take pity on her.

“Fashions have changed in the last 30 years, sweetie,” Tori said. “It’s acceptable now for a woman to wear pants to a funeral.”

“I don’t know,” Beth said doubtfully. “I was studying to be a Kappa Kappa Gamma and that just doesn’t sound right.

Studying
to be a Kappa Kappa Gamma?

For those of you who have no clue what we’re talking about, see
A Southern Belle Primer: Or Why Paris Hilton Will Never Be a Kappa Kappa Gamma
by Maryln Schwartz.

“Let me guess,” Tori said. “You were a legacy.”

“Well, yes,” Beth admitted haltingly. “But they would have
wanted
me. Excuse me. I’m going to go check on the cats.”

After I was sure she was gone, I turned to Tori, “Normally, I’d tell you that wasn’t very nice, but since she was driving me insane with all this funeral talk, I wish you’d gotten here an hour earlier.”

“Quickest way to shut up a would-be sorority girl,” Tori grinned, “call her a legacy.”

Over the next four hours, Beth popped in and out several times until she finally wore us down and we left for the funeral home at 2:15. Since it was a 5-minute drive, we not only nabbed seats in the back, we had the whole place to ourselves.

Beth instantly floated to the front of the room to evaluate the casket, which looked like something Snow White would have been laid out in. The box was sparkling white, with shiny silver handles, and little pink roses entwined in a border around the lid. Banks of floral arrangements surrounded the casket, including a massive spray of red roses with a black banner bearing the words, “BHHS Class of 1985, We Will Never Forget.”

Even though there was no one else in the chapel, Tori leaned over and whispered, “If that bunch we were in school with sent flowers, the ribbon would say, “Thank God and Greyhound she’s gone.’”

Stifling a laugh, I channeled my mother and said, “Stop that. Be reverent.”

That did nothing but set us both into a fit of suppressed giggling since we’d each routinely received the same admonishment in church from the moms all our lives.

From the front of the room, Beth shot us a very convincing disapproving look for a middle-aged teen. We hastily composed ourselves just as other people began to filter into the chapel one and two at a time. Within 30 minutes, the service was indeed standing room only.

Just before 3 o’clock, the minister came down the aisle leading the pallbearers, who took their seats on the front row. I was surprised to see Chase with them, looking trim and handsome in his dark suit, with a single white rosebud pinned to his lapel.

Once the men were in place, the funeral director escorted Emily Barlow to her seat in front. We all stood as Beth’s grieving mother passed. She was a small woman with gray hair that still showed hints of a more youthful chestnut. As I watched her walk, I could detect just the slightest suggestion of a limp. Chase did his work well with her shoes.

The minister held his hands up and motioned us back into our seats. That’s when I saw Beth. She was standing directly in front of her mother, looking down at her with an expression so filled with love and longing, I felt a knot rise in my throat.

Apparently, Mrs. Barlow had no family, because she sat alone on the front pew -- or at least she thought she was alone. As the preacher began to speak, Beth sat down beside her mother. At the same time, Mrs. Barlow turned toward the empty space beside her. Frowning slightly, she tentatively reached out. Her fingers touched Beth’s chest, just where her heart would have been, and Beth’s form grew stronger from the contact. I don’t know if her mother saw her, but a look of great peace settled over the grieving woman’s features as she turned her attention back to the sermon.

The minister refrained from using the circumstances of Beth’s death to deliver some ponderous consideration of God’s mysterious ways. Instead, he built his remarks around Matthew 19:14, “Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’"

When he was done, a woman from the Methodist church sang, “In the Garden.” On the last verse, the undertaker began to direct the mourners out of the chapel one row at a time. We filed out with the rest, joining the silent crowd lining the walkway from the door to the hearse. In a few minutes, the pallbearers appeared, walking slowly with Beth’s casket. Mrs. Barlow followed behind, Beth at her side.

On the way to the cemetery, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw a long line of cars with their headlights on. “Can you believe how many people came to the service?” I asked Tori.

She looked at me with red-rimmed eyes. “Do you think Mrs. Barlow knows Beth is with her?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said softly, “but I sure hope she does.”

Once the casket was unloaded at the cemetery, Chase came to stand with Tori and me. He hugged us both briefly and during the prayer, he took hold of my hand, entwining our fingers.

When the brief service ended, we all stood in line to offer our condolences to Mrs. Barlow.

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” I said to Chase in a low voice. “We could have all come together.”

“Emily called me last night,” Chase said. “They were shy a pallbearer. I was glad to help out even though I didn’t know the girl.”

As we approached, Mrs. Barlow, who had been sitting, stood to hug Chase. “Thank you so much for stepping in at the last minute,” she said.

“I’m honored you asked me,” he said. Turning slightly toward us, he added, “Emily, this is Jinx Hamilton and her friend Tori Lewis. They’re the ones who found Beth.”

“Oh!” Mrs. Barlow said. “I’m so glad you’re here. I was going to come to the store to talk to you.” As she spoke, she engulfed me in a hug and whispered against my ear, “Thank you for giving me my little girl back.”