Murder Most Witchy (Wendy Lightower Mystery) (15 page)

The words hung heavily in the air between them, spoken aloud but not yet received. Having heard what must have been the last thing she expected, Magda stared blankly at her.

It didn't take Wendy long to feel uncomfortable under the scrutiny. “Ian is one, too,” she added unnecessarily.

Ian gave Magda a nod from his reclined position. He seemed rather unfazed about the whole situation, which Wendy found extremely irritating.

“A witch.”

Wendy nodded.

“You're a witch.”

“Yes.”

Magda looked shell-shocked. “Either you're nuts, or I am,” she muttered. “I'm not sure which I prefer. Witches aren't real.”

Ian lifted his hands in front of his face and stared at them, his eyes theatrically wide. In a stage whisper, he said, “I'm not real?”

Magda shot him a hostile glare. “I take back what I said about you being cute.”

Ian smiled, bringing out the dimple. “No, you don't.”

Wendy could swear she actually heard Magda growl.

“All right, let's suspend reality for a minute and say that I believe you. What does being a witch entail exactly? Brooms and pointy hats? Don't tell me you're going to get warts.” The look of horror on her face made Wendy burst out laughing.

“It's nothing like that. I can't fly, and I've never looked good in hats.”

Magda snorted. “True.”

“Magic is part of the real world. It comes from nature, from the energy in the air and the water and the earth. Witches are just people who can tap into this energy.”

“How?” Magda gave up the pretense of not believing, and she leaned forward eagerly in her chair.

Wendy pondered the question. Magic was so much a part of herself that she found it difficult to verbalize, like if someone had asked her how exactly she was able to breath. “It's mostly a state of mind,” she glanced at Ian for confirmation, “but there are things we can do, words we say or preparations we make, that help us find that state of mind.”

“Word and preparations. That sounds like spells and potions,” replied Magda bluntly.

Wendy shrugged. “That's what they are, but potions and spells have no power in themselves. They are conduits to the energy found in nature.”

“This is easily the strangest conversation I have ever had.”

Wendy waited patiently while Magda assimilated this new worldview. Hearing that everything you had always understood about what was real and what was only make-believe was wrong took some processing time.

When she finally spoke again, it was exactly what Wendy had been expecting to hear. “Show me something.”

With a sigh, Wendy placed her hand on the table palm up. Her fingers were loose and relaxed, cupped slightly upward. She closed her eyes and felt the electrical energy in her own body coursing through her chest. She sent it down her arm and out through her positioned fingertips. At Magda's gasp she opened her eyes to see a small sparking blue ball encased in her fingertips, hovering above her palm. She flattened out her hand and the buzzing ball of energy fizzled and disappeared.

“Holy crap.”

Wendy didn't reply. There wasn't much else to say.

Magda eventually recovered enough to leave, but Wendy had a feeling that it might be a few days before she saw her again. Before she had left, Magda had asked one final question.

“Why didn't you tell me sooner?”

It seemed like a fair question. After all, their mutual friendship was really the only one that either of them had.

Wendy had the grace to look ashamed. “It isn't something we advertise. We have a long history of people not handling the news well. After a few burnings at the stake, we learned to keep our heads down.”

“The world isn't like that anymore,” Magda protested.

Wendy lifted an eyebrow. “No? The ones who didn't think we were evil would want to exploit us.”

“Fine,” Magda conceded, “but
I'm
not like that.”

It was clear that her feelings were hurt. In a rare, in fact unprecedented, showing of affection, Wendy hugged her friend.

“I'm sorry.”

Magda cleared her throat, looking oddly pleased and uncomfortable at the same time. “That's fine. I'll see you at work.”

She returned to the table after seeing Magda out. Ian had cleared all the dishes and was sitting at the table. A mass of black fur was sprawled in front of him making an irritating rumbling noise.

“Traitor.”

Ian looked amused. “Me or the cat?”

“The cat, of course. He knows I'm talking to him.” As she said the words, Charlie turned his huge unblinking eyes in her direction and purred even louder.

“I'm not sure what to do from here,” she said.

Ian tickled Charlie under the chin and was rewarded by a lick from his rough tongue on the tip of his fingers.

“You'll take the rest of the day off, and we'll start again tomorrow. We should find out more about the women who could have borne a grudge against Nathan Braun.”

“I have to go to work tomorrow,” Wendy protested, “I still have a real job.”

To her surprise, Ian didn't protest, or even seem to care all that much. “Fine, we'll start after you get off work. See you around five.”

After he left, Charlie sulked by the door for a solid hour before finally giving up and disappearing into cat oblivion.

Nine

“Have another,” said a slick voice full of confidence and poise. It was a voice that spoke of money and breeding, a voice that charmed and cajoled its way into its listener's hearts and minds.

The drink was pink and sweet, tasting strongly of fruit to mask the harsh burn of the alcohol. Normally at a function like this, the drinks were watered down just enough to feel them without cutting into profit margins. Hers was strong, just as strong as the first one.

He put his hands on her lower back and led her along, stopping now and then to greet an important person or smile at someone who knew him but whom he didn't recognize. He oozed charisma, and everyone who came within a two-feet radius was enthralled. She had to include herself.

They kept moving until the crowds thinned out and the lights dimmed as they entered an empty portion of the building. As the darkness enveloped her, her heart beat faster and faster, with something between fear and excitement. His hand moved lower, floating just above her rear end in that gray area where a protest might make her look silly and make him indignant. Soon, they had left everyone else behind, and it was only the two of them and the darkness.

She had known what was coming, and she didn't know whether it was the alcohol or the sheer shock of being selected that kept her quiet at first. Whatever it was, it didn't last beyond the first few seconds. His hands roamed freely now, sure and harsh by her implicit agreement, up and over her hips and landing on her breasts. He squeezed hard, and she squeaked, enough to break her own terrified silence.

“No, Mr. Braun, please.” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded weak and wheedling.

He shoved her against the wall, pinning her in place with one arm and forcing her head up with the other. He kissed her, forced open her mouth, and stuck his tongue so deep down her throat she thought she would gag.

“It's okay, baby. No one is going to see us.”

What had sounded charming and friendly in the light of the party now was only threatening. He used everything he had as a weapon, she realized, from his voice to his personality to his physical body.

She tried once more, hoping there was something human in him to reach. “I'm going to get in trouble,” she whined, the tears flowing down her face against her will and to her utter humiliation.

He bared his teeth; she could see them white and glaring in the dark. “Then I guess it would be best if you kept quiet.”

She knew then that there was nothing she could do. She could feel his intentions hard against her thigh, hear his heavy breathing echoing in her ear. He covered her mouth again, cutting off her breath, as he fumbled with the button on his expensive, impeccably tailored trousers.

The alarm blared through the silence, and Wendy sat bolt upright in her bed. She was breathing heavily, and her body was covered in a fine film of sweat. The nightmare replayed in her mind, sending her entire body into shivers.

Wendy glanced at her alarm clock with more charitable feelings than she had ever felt towards the device since the day she bought it. Six o'clock had never felt so welcome.

She jumped out of bed and went directly into the shower, withholding from her usual fifteen minutes of snoozing for fear that the nightmare would return. It had felt so real, so frightening, and only after she had let the hot water scald her body for ten solid minutes did she feel entirely human again.

Wendy drank two cups of very strong coffee and ate the last of Gerry's pastries, one that had become quite stale but was still worth the calories. The dream had affected her sleep, and she felt groggy, but she was absolutely determined to make it to work.

When she arrived, she knew that the reporters would be gone, off to pursue greener pastures in the form of Mayor Braun's murder, but still she drove up slowly, scanning the green, dewy lawn in front of the museum for trespassers. She parked first in the lot and entered the utterly silent building with the smallest amount of trepidation.

“Pull yourself together, Lightower,” she said out loud. She was angry with herself for letting any of it affect her opinion of the library where she had spent the vast majority of her adult life. It had always been her haven, her safe port in a storm, and she refused to allow anything to change that.

It didn't look any different than it had every day for the past five years. The shelves all lined with thick leather books that no one aside from her actually cared to read were illuminated by the weak early morning sunlight. Dust mites hovered in the air, filtering slowly towards the ground in their enthralling and ancient dance. The air smelled the same, musty and old but endearing. It held the same feeling of quiet wisdom that she had always felt when she entered the stacks.

And yet, it was different.

More accurately, perhaps, she was different. When she looked around the room where she had spent countless hours cataloging and categorizing books, she wasn't filled with the same joy, the same urge to handle the tomes that had always marked her days at the library. Today her mind ran through all the titles she remembered from the extensive catalog, searching for something that would help her, a book that might lead her to more magic. She thought only of her craft and the murder she had set out to solve. She hardly saw the books, at all.

Wendy wandered through the library, inexorably drawn once again to the museum, to the same spot where she had found Benny's body. Her adult life had been sedate, comfortable, and fulfilling in its way, but now, she was drawn into something bigger than herself. This, she thought, was the reason that she had kept magic so far away from her “real life.” She had known, ever since she was twelve years old, that the two were incompatible.

Frustrated most of all with herself, Wendy retreated into her office and shut the door, knowing that the rest of the employees would be arriving soon and not wanting to be disturbed. Secretly, she had hoped that something in the museum would spark a thought, a line of inquiry that would help her understand the reason behind Benny's murder.

In a desire to bring some order to her chaotic thoughts, Wendy decided to approach the problem methodically. She took two pieces of paper from the printer on her desk, ruled them into three even columns, and labeled one “Benny” and one “Nathan Braun.”

She labeled the columns next with the headings, “Suspect,” “Motive,” and “Opportunity.” The titles sounded like solid investigative terms and made her feel worldly and experienced. She stared at the Benny's paper for several long minutes before she set it aside. Nathan Braun's sheet was much easier to fill out.

Under the “Suspect” column, Wendy jotted down Archer's name first. She remembered what Ian had said about his ascension to the Mayor's seat.

Suspect: Archer

Motive: Death of Braun makes him mayor

Opportunity: Access to the office and knowledge of schedule

Wendy frowned. Laid out in her neat, efficient handwriting, Archer looked like a very strong suspect indeed. She hurried on to fill in the next slot.

Suspect: Mystery Woman

Motive: Braun assaulted her in the dark; revenge

Opportunity: ?

It was a far less satisfying entry. She tapped her pen against the vast whiteness of the paper. Her notes had taken up less than a quarter of the sheet. A thought popped into the forefront of her mind,
and she wrote it down immediately.

Suspect: Sheila Braun (victim's wife)

Motive: Braun was cheating

Opportunity: Access and knowledge of schedule

Granted, Wendy had absolutely no proof that Sheila Braun even knew her husband was cheating, but she liked having another suspect on the page to contend with Archer. Wendy was feeling very productive and official as she set down her ideas in this organized fashion. She wouldn't have been surprised to hear that seasoned police detectives did the exact same thing. With new confidence, she stacked Benny's sheet on top.

Suspect:

She stared at the word at the top of the blank column. Two names came to mind, and neither was a very appealing option. She took a harder grip on her pen and began to write.

Suspect: Nathan Braun

Motive: Blackmail? Getting rid of a witness?

Opportunity: Access to museum and alarm code through board membership

After witnessing the way he forced himself on that woman in the dark, Wendy could believe Nathan Braun capable of just about anything. She had to admit, however, that she couldn't think of solid reason why he would kill Benny, and then she would have to come up with some theory that explained two separate killers. That was simply unthinkable at this point. Underneath the Nathan Braun entry, she wrote a question.

Could Benny have seen something he wasn't supposed to see? Braun assaulting someone?

The idea that Benny had seen one of Braun's harassments sparked another idea in her mind. She knew that she speculating wildly at this point, but she pulled out Braun's sheet again and added another name.

Suspect: Jennifer Jacobi

Motive: If Braun killed Benny, revenge

Opportunity: ?

Wendy tapped the pen against her lip, her imagination running at a thousand miles per minute. A wisp of inspiration penetrated her fogged mind, and she jotted a question under Jennifer's name.

Could she be the Mystery Woman?

She knew Braun had some kind of relationship with Jennifer, which at least tied the two cases together. Wendy capped her pen, as though she was finished for now, but she remained in her seat. There was a name missing from Benny's page, and as much as she wanted to forget about it, she couldn't.

With a sigh, she uncapped the pen and wrote on Benny's page.

Suspect: Archer

Motive: ?

Opportunity: Access to museum and alarm code through board membership

She set the sheets side by and side. Archer's name was the only one to appear on both sheets. She fought the sudden urge to crumple the pieces of paper into little balls and chuck them into the trashcan. The most frustrating part of all, she realized, was that she had no way of knowing if any of the people she had considered even had the ability to commit the crimes. She didn't know if any of them had magical abilities.

The phone on her desk trilled, making Wendy jump. Caught off guard, she snatched the phone from the cradle and snapped, “Yes?”

The voice on the other end waited a beat before answering. “I'm looking for Wendy Lightower.”

“Speaking.”

The voice, a low man's voice, had been hesitant at first but now became more confident and assured. “This is Archer.”

Wendy jolted upright, her back ramrod straight in her leather office chair. His name stood out, dark indigo against a backdrop of white, on the papers in front of her. The word
Suspect
flashed in her mind like a warning signal.

Her momentary confusion made her words blunter than they would normally have been. “Why are you calling me?”

Whether he thought she was being rude or not, his reply was composed. “You told me I should call you at work, remember?”

“So I did.”

“How are you?” He seemed determined to keep the conversation cheerful despite her obvious reluctance.

“Busy,” she replied. “What can I do for you?”

She could practically hear his shrug over the phone, as though it wasn't his first choice to cut out the small talk but he could adapt. His reply, when it finally came, was as blunt as hers had been.

“I want you to have dinner with me.”

Even though she had sensed that Archer was maybe, as unbelievable as it seemed, a little attracted to her, the invitation still unbalanced her.

She sputtered into the phone. “Why?”

A low, throaty chuckle reached her ears. “Because you're beautiful, and I'm single. To top it off, I think you're interesting. Is that enough of a reason?”

Her ears were ringing with the word. “Beautiful?” Even as the word left her lips, she clamped them together, wishing that she could take it back. She sounded like a love-struck teenager being flattered by an older man. “I mean,” she shook her head clear, “I'm very busy.”

“So you said,” he replied smoothly. “I'm assuming you still eat.”

“Yes.”

“Great, then I'll pick you up at seven. At the library? Or would you like me to come to your place?”

The thought of Archer showing up at her front door sent her heart into wild palpitations. “No,” she said hurriedly, “the library is fine.”

His smug satisfaction was audible as he rang off. “See you at seven.”

Stunned, Wendy returned the phone and sat staring at her wall for probably far too long. She was still there when it swung open and Magda appeared on the other side.

“Wendy,” she began, her face set like a woman on a mission, but when she caught sight of Wendy's stunned expression, she sat down, concern overtaking her. “What's wrong?”

Wendy's eyes focused again and Magda came into view. As she spoke, she couldn't keep the bewilderment from her voice. “I have a date.”

Magda blinked, and then burst out laughing. “That's what we call a good thing. You need it. When is Ian picking you up?”