ATwistedMagick (2 page)

“I’m guessing high school. He drives a junker from his dad’s yard.”

“Do you have any idea who Matthew and Lalia’s friends are at school or if they have any enemies?”

“No. I’m kind of sixth-grade-centric right now.”

Detective Hain smiled. “Thanks. I’ve got your info if I need to talk to you later. Still got a few more interviews to do, so I want to get a move on. We will be visible on your street, knocking on doors and whatever we need to do.”

“Perfectly understandable.” Shylah stood, shook hands with the detective, hoisted her purse on her shoulder and exited the room. Once in the hallway she breathed a sigh of relief. Good things never came out of talking to cops. The first time she remembered was when the sheriff had come to tell her that her parents had died in an accident. The last time had been during a murder investigation.

* * * * *

Sadly, the two kids were found the next day, but not in the way everyone had hoped. Instead, searchers stumbled on the two bodies between a large grave marker and a sprawling willow tree at the local cemetery. News about the occult setup hit the news within hours. Once Shylah heard that pentagrams had been painted in blood on the children, she’d gone around her living room and hidden anything overtly pagan. She didn’t have enough time to hide her abundance of candles, herbs and incense before Detective Hain came knocking on her door, but hopefully those would appear innocuous enough. She invited the detective in and offered her tea, which luckily she declined, saying she just wanted Shylah’s take on the occult aspects.

“It certainly does sound like some sort of ritual,” Shylah said cautiously. The detective had already admitted to investigating occult crimes in New York, so did she really need a solo witch’s help? “But a blood ritual is something a Wiccan would never do. You know about the Wiccan Rede and the Three-Fold Law, right?” Hain nodded but kept her astute gaze on Shylah. “This sounds more like ceremonial magick or something made up in some sicko’s mind. What else was at the scene?”

“There was melted candle wax with nails in it.”

Shylah gasped but quickly covered this by sipping her tea. She didn’t know the meaning of the nails off-hand, but she knew where she’d heard about such a candle before. Damn. She’d left New Orleans long ago. Why were traces of her past following her here? She steadied her hand before setting the cup on the bamboo coaster on her table. “I don’t know what it means. I might be able to look it up, if you’d like.”

Hain stood with a polite smile on her face. “Well, if you have time. I need to get back to the station and check in with the ME and forensics and start the mess of paperwork.”

Shylah prayed the detective would realize that being a Wiccan in no way connected her to such an awful crime, but what if she looked into her background?

Good old Candice Self wasted no time letting everyone know that Shylah was a “Satan worshiper”. How had she known? She’d never visited Shylah’s house, and even when out on social occasions with any of the other teachers, Shylah had been careful not to mention anything about it. On the third night after the murders, her house got egged. Fourth night, her car keyed. Windows broken with rocks. She was shunned at the grocery store but assaulted by loud whispers about her being a murderer. That truly was a minority of the town, but they were a vocal minority, and they were slow to tire of their persecution. Before winter break was over, they’d made sure she was “relieved” of her teaching job.

She’d almost packed up then. But she was damned if she was going to run when she was innocent. She could fix slashed tires and broken windows, but she couldn’t fix her life if it became a series of decampments again. She would stay, the murders would be solved and eventually they would shut up…

She hoped.

* * * * *

Aunt Eldora wasn’t speaking to him, hadn’t been speaking to him for three months now. Gabriel Niguel had tried to explain to her, to his other aunts, to his mother and older cousins, that he didn’t have the money. He’d happily fly across the country to look into his cousin Lalia’s death if he could afford the thousand dollars or more it would cost him to fly to Virginia from Los Angeles, rent a car and a hotel room, and pay for food and gas while he was there. Not to mention the work he would miss while he was out of town. His aunt had said that he could stay with Lalia’s family, but he couldn’t imagine imposing on Angelita and her husband while they were grieving even if he’d had the money for the plane. He’d gone bankrupt five years ago and he was just starting to get a decent credit score again..

The family rift was growing, though, the more time passed.

Tia
Eldora had related the details when she’d still been speaking to him. “It’s Shylah Lewis, Angelita said. She was a teacher at Lalia’s school. She’s been fired,
gracias a Dios
, but she won’t leave town. Of course, Angelita says if she leaves town, it would be harder to get evidence against her, but she can’t stand running into her at the grocery store and the post office. She wants to kill this woman for what she did to Lalia.”

“If this Lewis lady did this, then why haven’t the police arrested her?”

“She’s bespelled them. She’s a
bruja
and the children bore her mark!”

Gabe realized a certain amount of prejudice was at play here, but then why had the school fired her? He’d spent the last couple of months researching the case on the internet, then running up his phone bill, because he really did want to help his cousin. He’d learned that Shylah had been ticketed thirteen times since the murders for parking violations and broken taillights. She’d also filed nine complaints about vandalism to her property, and the officer he’d spoken to had confided that they’d never bothered sending a uniform to her home. The entire Smith Creek police force seemed convinced she was the murderer, so they had to have their reasons, right? But the head detective wouldn’t make the arrest, because the evidence was circumstantial.

Meanwhile Gabe had been working on the Rianna Ryan case, a popular Hispanic singer with a scary stalker. After catching the guy, Rianna had handed him a nice fat check.

And today Rianna’s check had cleared, so Gabe’s bank account was uniquely flush. Of course, he’d eat up any profit by not working for pay the week he went out East, and he really needed to replace the beat-up air conditioner in his office before summer hit. But he’d told Aunt Eldora that money was the issue and now it wasn’t. He’d lived through one family estrangement, during which his father had died without a chance to say goodbye. He wasn’t willing to risk another one.

The cheapest flight, between the layovers and delays, took twelve hours, and Gabe was exhausted by the time he drove his rental car out of the Richmond airport parking lot. He decided to stay in one of the hotels by the airport and tomorrow he’d drive out to Smith Creek, which was about an hour west of Virginia’s capital city.

In the morning, he drove to his cousin’s house. Rolling into town, he got the sense that two time periods were fighting for dominance. Quaint old buildings housed quaint little stores. There was a lone gas station with two gas pumps and an antique pump from the 50s as a decoration. Then there was the modern, garish Walmart and a shiny shopping center built around it. He passed the two schools, Smith Creek Elementary and Smith Creek Central. The elementary school was brick with arches above the doors and windows. It struck him as something built in the 50s. The high school, on the other hand, was obviously newer with a huge track and football field and a wide parking lot full of cars. He left Main Street and got onto Holly Oak Road, entering the Holly Oak subdivision, which had been built three years ago. His cousin Angela and her husband had moved into a custom-built house that was taller vertically than it was wide. The neighborhood houses were based on three designs repeated throughout, so it took him a second glance to find the right place.

A Mazda sat in the drive. Angela was expecting him and had stayed home from work. A pineapple Christmas flag hung from a metal arm at the end of the drive and the mailbox still had Christmas lights twisted around it. Gabe parked on the cement drive and followed the cut-stone walk to the door. The yard was a bizarre green, considering it was March and the yards outside the subdivision still had mostly brown grass despite the blooming daffodils.

Taking a deep breath, he knocked. She’d be calmer now, he guessed, since it had been almost three months since the murders. If he’d come out here right away she would’ve been a hysterical mess, but the woman who opened the door was barely recognizable as his cousin. Deep grooves splayed around her mouth and eyes, and her eyes were spidery red. Her hair, though pulled back neatly, was mostly gray and looked gristly instead of soft. She wore brand clothes, Ann Taylor maybe, a pencil skirt and a gray blouse, which helped make her face look ashy despite her carefully applied makeup. She invited him inside and immediately went to hug him. Yeah, Gabe’s family hugged all the time, but Angela seemed so stiff and strange, and she felt boney. He returned the hug quickly, but she didn’t let go. She clung to his neck and started sobbing on his jacket. Oh God, this was what he’d hoped to avoid.

“Thank God you’re finally here.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss, Angela.” The words seemed so trite, but he hoped she could hear the sincerity in his voice. It made his heart ache knowing what she’d gone through, was still going through.

She finally pulled away, letting him step fully into the house. “Would you like something to drink? I just made some coffee, but I also have wine or something stronger if you’d like.”

Since it wasn’t noon yet he didn’t know why she was offering alcohol, but a glance at the coffee table told him she’d already imbibed. A half-empty wine bottle and a glass with wine residue sat side by side. “
Café, por favor
.”

“Have a seat.” She gestured to one of the armchairs, so he sat. The fabric was too flowery for his tastes, but the overall look of the room was carefully put together, professionally decorated he’d guess. Or perhaps she watched too much HGTV.

She came back with his coffee and a mug for herself. He caught a whiff of whisky along with the coffee smell. His was straight black, though, and nice and hot. He sipped as she settled on the couch. Fake logs were in the fireplace grate, but they were giving off heat so they must be electric or something.

“So good to see you, Gabe.”

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“That was the hard part about moving east, not seeing
la familia
. Mama only visits once a year, though we offer to buy her tickets to come more often. The flight is too rough on her, she says.”

“Well, it’s certainly a pain in the ass with security and the layovers and connections.”

Angela nodded. “Mama’s thoughts exactly. How is she?”

“Well…” He hadn’t seen her since she stopped speaking to him. He’d barely managed to see his mother in the past couple of months. “Okay, I think. She’s been pissed that I couldn’t come out here sooner.”

“Mama pissed? No way.”

“Aunt Eldora is the queen of cold shoulders.”

Angela smiled a little. “I don’t know that you can help much, even now. In the beginning, it was all about the police, then we hired three private investigators, one after another. A waste of money and I wasn’t working at the time. I’m so glad my employers were kind and held my job for me; otherwise I don’t know where we’d be right now. We were on the verge of losing the house.”

Gabe hadn’t heard about their money distress. “Is it better now?”

“Yes. We caught up on all the payments once I started back to work. The bank worked with us because of…of…”

“The tragedy.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ll need the names of everyone you worked with on the investigation so far. I’ll talk to each of them to see what paths they followed. Maybe I’ll notice some avenue they missed. I don’t want you to get your hopes up, though. How is Jorge handling everything?” Jorge was Angela’s first husband and Lalia’s real father. The divorce had been heated, but with all of this…

“Dave says he’s messed up. The last time I saw him was at my baby’s funeral.” She looked like she might burst out crying again, but she held it in. “Dave says it’s right to keep in touch with him, since he’s grieving too, but I just can’t deal with the accusation in his eyes. He blames me for not knowing where she was at every second of the day.”

“The police interviewed Dave?” He was Lalia’s stepfather.

“Yes. It was terrible. They talked to him at the house, at the station, at his work, like he was a suspect! He didn’t do this. He didn’t even know Matthew Horton. That Shylah witch…”

Gabe wanted to come back to the witch angle after he’d followed the usual trails. “Did the police figure out commonalties between Matthew and Lalia?”

“The same school, the same neighborhood, the same church.”

“Same church? Your church?” He pulled out a small notebook and scrawled a note about that. The cops would’ve talked to the congregation. Gabe wanted to know what they’d discovered.

“No, Lalia wanted to go to the Baptist church Dave goes to, instead of Catholic, and the Horton boy goes there too.”

“Were Lalia and Matthew boyfriend--girlfriend?”

Angela frowned. “I told her she was too young to date, but she said they just held hands at school and that it made her look more popular at school to have a boyfriend.”

“So, as far as you know, they only saw each at school and church?”

“Yes.”

“And what about the Horton family? Did the detectives pursue any leads from that end?”

“They looked closely at Matthew’s father. Why is it always the family they suspect first?” She swallowed some coffee.

“Now tell me why you think Shylah Lewis is the murderer.”

His cousin’s eyes narrowed and seemed to grow harder. “The witch communed with the devil the night she murdered my Lalia. She drew the Devil’s mark on her hands in blood.”

“Do you have any proof that it was Shylah and not some other Pagan in the community?”

“She’s the only witch in this town! And Vicky Horton swears Matthew was bewitched by her.” Her eyes burned with righteous indignation, the kind that wouldn’t see reason. Gabe supposed it was easier for her to deal with her grief if she could focus her anger on someone. “And they found her DNA at the scene, but still they wouldn’t arrest her!” She gripped Gabe’s hands. “You’ve got to prove she did it before she kills someone else.”