Murder Most Witchy (Wendy Lightower Mystery) (2 page)

The Fish Grotto was packed, with people waiting outside the door for a table even at this early hour.

"Tourist season," Magda growled under her breath. Like many year-rounders, Magda had a love-hate relationship with the tourist population that invaded their town every summer for a few weeks of 'quaint' seaside living. The tourists brought in the vital lifeblood of revenue to many local businesses, yet they also caused more than a few inconveniences.

"Just wait until August. There won't be anywhere to park," Wendy added.

Despite the line, Wendy and Magda walked in and immediately found a table in the bar area. The bar was somewhat darker and dingier, less polished than the dining area, and therefore less popular with tourists. There were still a number of open tables there while the dining area was completely full.

Wendy ordered an IPA and a side order of fries. Magda sipped on her martini but didn't order anything to eat.

"Do you want some?" Wendy inquired politely, knowing what the response would be.

Magda's long Grecian nose wrinkled in disgust. "No. Fried food makes me gag."

Wendy dipped another fry deep into her blob of catsup and popped the whole thing in her mouth. "Your loss," she said through a mouthful of fry.

Choosing to ignore her, Magda changed the subject, "What do you think of the new exhibit?"

As full time employees, both Wendy and Magda had been treated to a behind-the-scenes look at the new exhibit on the town's history. Derek, the director of the museum portion of the building, had led them through the displays, strutting like a proud peacock the entire time. It had been some time since the museum had obtained anything worth showing, and the local history angle was very popular at the moment.

"Derek is certainly pleased with it," Wendy replied tactfully.

Magda sniffed. "Derek is pleased with Derek."

"I thought some of the items had merit," Wendy acknowledged.

"Are you going to the opening party tomorrow night?"

The launch of the exhibit was to be marked with North Harbor's version of a gala event. Every major personage, both local and visiting, was scheduled to attend, and it was going to be the social event of the month, if not the season. The library and museum staff had all been invited, probably because it gave Derek a chance to feel important in front of them.

Wendy nodded. "I'll be there. I'm actually looking forward to it." A small smile crossed her lips. "I haven't been to a party in a while."

Magda finished her drink in one long swallow. "Oh, I know. Not through lack of trying on my part. If there aren't any books or historical documents involved, you can't be bothered."

Not knowing what to say, Wendy didn't answer. Examples that proved otherwise flooded her mind, but none seemed appropriate for public consumption. Instead she just shrugged, a sufficiently vague response.

Magda looked like she had more to say, as usual. The words were poised on her lips, when she was interrupted. A man in a nicely tailored suit, his hair so perfect it seemed glued into place, touched her on the arm.

"Excuse me," he began, flashing dazzlingly white teeth.

Magda's sigh was audible from across the room. "Let me guess. You normally wouldn't do something like this, but there was something about me, and you just couldn't resist. Thank you, but I don't need another drink."

To his credit, the man did not sulk, as some were wont to do, or curse her, which was the reaction of many others. Instead he grinned, his teeth blinding in their whiteness against his nicely tanned face, and shrugged.

"You can't blame a guy for trying."

Magda was so used to being hit on, and to the wounded men's responses, that she actually favored this one with a smile.

"Fair enough," she conceded.

He walked away without trying again, another point in his favor. A few minutes later, refills arrived for both women. The bartender merely said the drinks had been paid for, and the man didn't show himself again.

"He may not have been so bad," Wendy said, taking a long pull from her beer.

Magda looked thoughtful. "It's so hard to tell," she sighed. "There are so many of them."

From any other woman, that would have been an unjustified brag or a comment designed to incur jealousy. The truth was that men were drawn to Magda like a moths were to a flame, and the process generally ended just as well for the men as it did for the moths.

Wendy appreciated her free drink, though she didn't finish it. "I have to drive home," she explained unnecessarily.

As they both knew, Magda lived within walking distance of the library, and she unabashedly finished her second martini.

She daintily patted her red lips with a cocktail napkin. "See you tomorrow. I'll come by to help you pick an outfit."

As Wendy drove home, she considered the meager contents of her clothes closet. Magda would not be impressed. There was very little it contained that she hadn't already worn to work, and somehow she didn't think that her work ensemble was what Magda had in mind for a party.

Her second closet, carefully camouflaged in plain sight in her foyer, would provide much greater interest, though nothing better to wear.

Though she drove to work, Wendy didn't live all that far from the library either, and she reached her small cottage in a matter of minutes. Parking in the single car driveway, she walked up a small walkway, which was flanked on both sides with flowers in a vibrant rainbow of colors. She spared a small smile for the flowerbeds, which she had planted herself.

Wendy felt the familiar rush of satisfaction at the sight of her little house. It had a real-life white picket fence in the front that had first attracted her to the property. Then, it had been something of a fixer-upper, so the price had reeled her in completely. Now, five years later, the house was finally exactly how she wanted it, from the darkly stained hardwood floors to the pristinely white crown moulding. Her little house was a haven, an oasis from all the demands she felt from the outside world - job, men, family. Especially family.

Wendy unlocked the door and let herself in. Upon crossing the threshold she paused and called out, "Charlie!"

There was no answer.

Her roommate was very moody and more than a little aloof. Some days he would greet her at the doorway, desperate for her attention, and he wouldn't leave her alone for the rest of the night. Other days, like today, he was nowhere to be found.

Wendy crept down the short hallway towards the back bedroom and small separate bath. "Charlie," she called again. Still no response from inside the house.

She walked into the bathroom and peered into the bathtub. "There you are!"

Charlie, her oversized black cat, sat in the middle of the bathtub, staring up at her with unblinking golden eyes.

"What are you doing in there?"

Charlie lifted one paw to his mouth and licked it.

"Cleaning yourself. What else?"

Her words sparked some action in the cat. He moved towards one end of the tub and shoved at the small opening in the sliding doors. The problem was that Charlie weighed approximately fourteen pounds, and the opening he tried to slip through was only four inches wide. He knocked his head against the glass and landed back in the tub.

"That isn't going to happen," Wendy told him.

He tried again anyway.

After the third attempt, she took pity on the cat and slid the door open the rest of the way.

"What I want to know," she commented at his retreating figure, "is how you got in there in the first place."

Charlie's tail swished back and forth as he disappeared through an open doorway. His offended dignity was palpable. She probably wouldn't see him for again for another three days. She refilled his food and water bowl, knowing that the only way she would know that he hadn't abandoned her completely would be from seeing those empty containers each morning.

Having taken care of her feline's dietary needs, Wendy decided she probably think about taking care of her own. She went into her kitchen and began thumbing through a stack of take out menus. Pictures of greasy Chinese food and inauthentic Thai cuisine followed the standard photos of pizza and breadsticks. The glossy staged pictures served only to make her stomach turn backflips. As much as she didn't want to cook, neither did she want anything she saw in the images displayed on the tri-fold menus in her junk drawer. She finally gave up, shoving the menus back into the darkness of the drawer and pulling open her freezer.

A bag of frozen shrimp paired with a head of broccoli from the vegetable drawer made a decent enough stir-fry. After the french fries at the bar, it was at least enough to make her feel comfortably full.

As she ate perched on a stool at her breakfast bar, her eyes kept drifting towards the small, unobtrusive closet near the front door. It was smaller than a regular door, and assuming it was for storage, no one ever tried to open it. Lucky for her. Someone might start asking questions if, after trying to open it, they found it was locked with the most expensive deadbolt available. Anybody with a grain of intelligence would wonder what exactly she wanted to keep so secret and protected from prying eyes.

It was a pretty safe bet, however, that no one would ever guess what was actually inside.

Though she hadn't opened it in months, Wendy realized it was the second time in a single day that her thoughts had centered on that closet and its contents. She knew better than most that coincidences were non-existent and were, in fact, only a coping mechanism for the unimaginative. She pulled the key off from the hook and approached the door with a certain unjustified trepidation. She had been in and out of that closet innumerable times, and everything in it had been placed and organized by her own hand. There was the sense, however, of walking backwards even as she moved towards the door. That closet represented her past, a time in her life that had largely ended by her own volition.

Yet something drew her onward.

The key slid into the lock as easily as though she had been using it daily. It rotated noiselessly, and the door swung open on freshly oiled hinges, which was impossible since Wendy had never oiled a hinge in her life.

She held her breath as the low door moved across her line of vision and the contents of the closet came into view.

Everything was exactly where she had left it. Nothing had changed. The bags of visually unidentifiable powders and herbs hung neatly on their hooks. A miniature black cauldron sat in the center of the single shelf. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the right hand wall of the closet. Only when she saw that the book was securely in place did she actually exhale.

The cover was worn and faded. To her trained eye, it showed its age in the discoloration and texture of the paper. And this book was old, far older than anything she handled in her position at the library. With the same respect and even more reverence than she had shown for the town register she had restored, Wendy trailed her fingers softly down the book's spine. Of all the parts of her life that she had locked away inside this closet, she missed the book the most. After assuring herself that everything was where it was supposed to be, the irrational fear she had felt left her, and she closed the closet door.

At the moment the door clicked shut a shrill ringing broke the silence and made Wendy jump. Only one person ever used the landline that Wendy maintained for completely unknown reasons. She let the phone keep ringing until it broke off abruptly and a male voice echoed through the room.

The timing of his call had been so fortuitous that, if it weren’t a ridiculous notion, she would think he had somehow been watching her. Ridiculous it was, and yet, as she now reminded herself once again, she didn't believe in coincidences.

"It's me, Wendy. I know you're there, so you might as well pick up the phone."

There was a long pause while Wendy actually considered picking up. She hesitated just long enough that the voice on the other end betrayed its impatience.

"Fine," the voice sighed, "I'm just checking in. No need to panic. I hope I'll see you this weekend."

The line crackled as the caller hung up. The short burst of dial tone in the still silence of her home created an ache deep in Wendy's stomach. A sharp stabbing of loneliness followed hard on the heels of that deep-seated aching. She reached out for the phone, harboring every intention of dialing the caller back and assuring him that she would indeed be there on Sunday.

Before she had a chance to follow through on this good intention, the phone trilled in her hand.

"Oh, come on!" she exclaimed to the offensive object. Knowing she couldn't ignore it this time, she barked into the phone, louder than she meant to, "Yes?"

"Well, hello there, niece. It is a pleasure to hear your voice."

Underneath the kind words his tone was an unspoken reprimand that it had been far too long since she had called.

"I've been busy with the new exhibit," she reminded him, although she knew he was well aware of the fact.

"Yes, I know," he responded.

Wendy could hear the weariness in his voice, and concern overrode her irritation. "You've been working too hard," she accused him, even knowing that it would lead to the same old argument.