The Magic of Murder (16 page)

“See? It’s working. She’s back,” Rebecca said.

I reached out and cried, “Water!”

“No water!” Her command stopped Roger who had started toward the kitchen. “Don’t want to dilute the mixture.”

I’ve got to find out what she mixed together so I can feed that stuff to someone I don’t like,
I thought, though I did feel a trifle better. Still, something bothered me. Something I had to remember. Damn, what was it?

I looked to the altar, still set up in front of the French doors. The blue tapers had burned almost halfway down. How long had I been out? I turned my eyes to the railroad station clock screwed onto the wall near my bookcases. It was well past midnight. I’d been gone for hours. I must
have done something, seen something, or learned something.
What was it? I only remembered the old woman in the snow, pointing at me. The heart betrays, she had said.

I rolled onto my side and saw Elvira at the French doors, peering outside. Looking for the gray-haired crone?

“What?” Rebecca asked.

“Huh?” I said.

“You seem puzzled.”

“No. Uh-uh. I’m…fine.”

Roger’s pinched lips said he doubted I was fine.

“Really, I am,” I insisted.

“If you’re sure—”

“She will be,” Rebecca said. “Just needs a few minutes to gather herself.”

What can’t I remember?
I thought.
Something about an alley and why I ran through it.

Still sounding uncertain, Roger said, “I’ll go home then, grab some sleep. Tomorrow I wanna catch up with Woody before he has a chance to lock himself in his office.”

An alley?
I thought.
Woody. Amy—
At last what I had seen rushed back. Though my head hurt when I moved, and though my hand ached where the bullet in my dream had shattered the bones, I reached out to him. “No! Not tomorrow, tonight. Amy Woodward—we have to help her. She’s been shot.”

“What?” Roger said.

“She was shot. So much blood. She’s dying. I saw it happen.”

Rebecca’s jaw dropped. “You saw—? The divination spell worked? Tell me. I have to write it in the
Book of Shadows
.”

This wasn’t the time to make notes about what we’d accomplished. I pushed her hand away, and sat up. “Amy Woodward’s in trouble!”

Roger sat heavily in my wingback chair. “How did you…when…?”

“No questions. Please.” I had to get him to move. “You need to trust me, Roger. This once, trust me.”

“Do what she says,” Rebecca said.

“Do what she says? I have no idea what she’s saying.”

I took a breath deep enough to loosen the knot in my throat. Then, in a very few words I told them about the alley and the argument I heard.

“You just described the back lane off Nineteenth Street,” Roger said. “That’s where they found Jimmy.” He looked at Rebecca. “She must have read about the alley in the
Gazette
.”

Yes, I had read about the alley in the newspaper, but my seeing it in a trance wasn’t a drug-induced delusion. Explaining that, though, would have wasted valuable time.

“We have to help Amy!” I shouted, and tried to rise. As if the pain in my head had a hand, it shoved me back on the arm of the sofa.

For a nonbeliever, Roger reacted rather quickly. He
grabbed his coat and car keys. “
We’re
not going anywhere,”
he said. “You two stay here. I’ll find out if something happened.” At the door, he stopped, turned back. “And no more candles and incense, please. Not tonight, at least.”

I held my head to keep it from toppling off my shoulders while I gave him half a nod—half a nod was as much as I could manage.

Apparently, he didn’t believe I would stay put. He returned to the living room and snatched the athame from our altar. “Just to make sure,” he said as he slipped the knife into his coat pocket. Then he was out my front door.

“Guess he’s not overly concerned about the Feds outside warning Chief Woodward he’s on the prowl,” Rebecca remarked.

Roger was right not to take me at my word. Although, I hadn’t really promised—I mean, a half-nod could have meant anything. As soon as I heard the engine of his SUV roar, I said, “Turn off the lights. We still have time before the candles burn out.”

Rebecca didn’t move.

“Hey, come on. Help me get up. I’ve got another knife we can use.”

She sat like a rock next to me on the sofa. “Uh-uh. If I let you do anymore tonight, Roger will wind up in jail.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He’ll get arrested for killing me if I let you do anything
but lay there.”

I stumbled to my feet without her help. “Who are you more afraid of, me or him?”

“
He’s
got a gun,” she answered.

I refused to be put off. “Rebecca, I have to get back there—into the trance. The old woman I saw? I think she’s Sarah Goode. She tried to tell me something.”

Instead of giving me her hand, she went to the altar and pinched out the candles.

“How many times do I have to warn you about unintended consequences?” she said. “Sure, the woman might have been Sarah. But it could just as easily have been a dark spirit who wants to lead you to a place I won’t be
able to bring you back from. I know witches that’s happened
to.”

“They never came back?”

“Never. Not their minds. They just sit, babbling nonsense. Do you wanna wind up that way? Thought not. So knock it off. You’ve done enough tonight. Let’s wait to see if Amy Woodward really is hurt.”

It was only a couple of hours before we found out.

Chapter Seventeen

What Detective Frey Found

          
T
he phone call from Roger was short and terse. Amy Woodward was dead, he said. He was with her husband at the precinct. They’d probably be there the rest of the night. We didn’t hear what happened until the next afternoon.

Still dressed in the black robes we wore when Roger left, Rebecca and I just sat down to lunch—grilled cheese and tomato bisque, my favorite winter meal—when I heard the latch click, and my front door opened.

I jumped from my seat.

“Everyone decent?” Roger called from the hall.

With all that happened last night, I’d forgotten I gave him my key.

Rebecca grabbed my hand and eased me back down. “About as decent as you might expect,” she said. “We’ve been up all night.”

Roger leaned through the kitchen door. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have phoned so late.”

“If you hadn’t,” I said, “I’d have hit you with a spell to make your hair fall out.”

“Yeah, huh?” I pictured him patting his head to be sure his brown curls were still there.

“Or else I would have made you drink some of that elixir Rebecca fed me.” My lips curled and I shivered when I recalled the taste.

“She’s not kidding,” my friend said. “After last night, you ought to realize Emlyn’s not a woman to mess with.”

The hall closet opened. Hangers rattled. A moment later, Roger was in the kitchen doorway. His face was drawn. Lines and dark circles around his eyes made him look far older than his forty-two years. Instead of the sweatshirt and jeans he had on when he left my house, he wore a fresh green shirt and pressed brown slacks. I smelled the Royal Copenhagen aftershave he always used. Clearly, he’d stopped at home before coming over.

“So, tell us,” I said.

He pulled out a chair, sat next to me, and leaned over to sniff my soup. “Got any more of this? I’m famished.”

“What do you think?” I said to Rebecca. “Should we feed him?”

“That depends on whether he’s gonna tell us what happened.”

“Very nice. I sneak out of an interrogation so I can let you know you were right—nearly get my head chewed off for doing it—and this is how you treat me?”

I dipped a spoon into my soup, blew on it, and put it in my mouth. “This is rather good. What did you put in it?”

“A little of this, a little of that,” Rebecca said.

Roger took the spoon from my hand. “Let me taste it.”

I pushed the bowl to the other side of the table. “I don’t hear anything about last night. Do you, Rebecca?”

“Nope, not a word. Oh, and try your sandwich. Three different cheeses in it.”

Roger shoved his lower lip out in a sulk. “You’re just cruel, both of you.”

“What do you expect?” I said. “I’m a witch.”

He sat back and sighed. “After last night, I’m almost ready to believe you are.”

If a mirror were nearby, I would have gazed into it to see if my skin had turned green yet.

“So, if you don’t want to spend the rest of your life saying
riiibit
,” Rebecca said, “tell us.”

“The soup’s awfully good,” I added.

My mother always says a man’s stomach is the shortest distance to his heart. In this instance, it proved to be the quickest route to his vocal cords. While Rebecca grilled him a sandwich and ladled soup into a bowl, Roger began by telling us what he’d done the first time he left my house.

***

Roger slipped out the French doors. So he wouldn’t be noticed if one of the DEA agents had camped in my yard, he hugged the wall of the house, squeezed through my azalea bushes, and scaled the fence dividing our property. He entered his house through the back door, put on heavy denim jeans, several layers of shirts, and his black hooded sweatshirt with the Niagara Falls Police Department logo. He zipped his blue quilted jacket over the sweatshirt. Prepared now for the cold night, he brushed more than a foot of snow from the tarp covering his motorcycle. Steadying the bike, he walked it through two neighboring yards to a point where the curve in River Road made him invisible to the men parked outside my house.

As I expected he’d do, he took an indirect route to the Falls. Even bundled up, he was colder than he could ever recall being (colder than a witch’s tit, is how he described it, and then he leered at me). Through the twenty minutes from his house to where the Woodwards lived, he shivered, and cussed at himself for being so stupid as to be out on a night such as this. Still, he wouldn’t quit and return home before he caught pneumonia. Not Detective Roger Frey. Not once he’d made up his mind he had to find out what his boss was hiding (and he says
I’m
the most obstinate, pigheaded person he’s ever met).

The house Harry and Amy Woodward owned was off Hyde Park Road, a few blocks from what used to be the Amtrak station. One of the many pre-war wood-frame homes along the tree-lined streets in Niagara Falls, it was painted white with blue shutters and trim, and had a covered front porch. In summer, the house was a welcoming sight. Not so on a late March evening when the headlight of Roger’s Harley lit snow drifts blown high against the clapboards, and icicles hanging from the eaves. When he steered into the driveway, the house was dark.

He climbed the three wood stairs to the porch, opened the storm door, and knocked.

Not a sound from inside.

He walked along the porch. Hand above his brow, he peered through one window, then another. A single light cast a yellow glow through the door from the kitchen to the dining room.

He rapped on the window, and called, “Woody, Amy, you home?”

The hiss of the wind and rustling of tree branches was the only response.

Again on his motorcycle, Roger rode down Hyde Park Road to the police station. As if he’d run the entire way, he was out of breath when he arrived. Woody’s Buick Skylark wasn’t in the lot.

His helmet under his arm, he entered the precinct. “Seen Chief Woodward tonight?” he asked.

The desk sergeant, tall and gawky, raised one eye from the crossword puzzle in the newspaper folded on his desk. He yawned into his uniform jacket, licked the point of his pencil, and filled in a six letter word. After inspecting the puzzle grid, he said, “The Chief was here. Left about twenty minutes ago.”

Frustrated, Roger slapped the desk. As he turned to leave, the sergeant called to him, “The man smelled like he had a snootful and he looked pissed.”

Back in the lot behind the precinct, Roger climbed onto his bike, revved the engine, and roared down Pine Avenue to where it fed into Niagara Falls Boulevard. Racing along the almost deserted street, he headed for the Royal Apartments—the low-rent complex my ex moved into after our divorce. Having seen the way Harry Woodward reacted when I told him his wife and Kevin had both been at Main Street Books, Roger feared his boss had leapt to the conclusion they were having an affair. Earlier in the evening, I had wondered the same thing. So Roger figured Chief Woodward might go to Kevin’s place, expecting to catch them in
flagrante delicto
. More anxious each time a red light halted his progress, Roger muttered to himself. He wanted to get to Kevin before Chief Woodward made a mistake he could never undo.

He sped up the boulevard, onto Military Road, then
down a side street. Overhead, a low-flying military transport
dipped its wings and circled for a landing at the airbase near the apartment complex.

When he arrived, Roger skidded in a circle in front of
Kevin’s unit. He saw no sign of Harry Woodward’s Skylark.
No lights were on in the apartment.

Roger straddled his Harley and pounded the handlebars.

This is when Rebecca caused his cell phone to sing. He heard the worry in her voice and returned to my house, where I told him of the vision I’d had. Though he refused to believe I
witnessed
Amy’s murder, his recollection of the single light in the Woodward house on a frigid weekday night worried him. Had Chief Woodward killed his wife in a jealous rage then fled? Fed by my fear, he didn’t stop to consider whether Woody might be at a late meeting with the DEA, and Amy might have left the light on for him when she went to bed.

Now in his Trailblazer, and much the warmer for the exchange of vehicles, he sped back to the white and blue clapboard house.

When he pulled up, he saw his boss’s Buick in the driveway. The house was now lit. The front door was open.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Roger climbed from his car and started up the steps. As he reached to open the storm door, he heard a loud moan and a sobbed, “Amy! Why?”

Dreading his worst fear had been realized, he rushed inside.

“Why, Amy? Why?” Harry Woodward cried.

Roger nearly tripped on the dining room area rug as he rounded the corner and burst into the Woodwards’ kitchen. What he saw brought him to a skidding stop.

Harry Woodward sat on the tile floor, his back against the dishwasher. He was covered in blood. Amy’s head in his lap, one arm draped across her shoulders, he rocked back and forth. A red pool spread beneath his wife’s body.

“Why? Why?” Chief Woodward groaned.

Roger gasped. “Woody, what happened?”

“Why?” the Chief said again, as if he didn’t realize anyone else was there.

His eyes quickly scanning the scene, Roger noticed a sink full of soapy water. There were red splatters on the backboard and a broken plate on the floor. It appeared as though Amy had been washing dishes when a shot hit her in the back.

Two pots had fallen from the stove. Amy must have knocked them over when she fell.

A pane of glass just above the kitchen doorknob was shattered. Wooden dinette chairs were overturned. A purse lay on the floor, its contents scattered. Drawers were open. Knives, forks, and spoons were also strewn about.

Had this been the work of an intruder who entered through the back door, intending to rob the house? If so, why was Amy Woodward’s back turned? Surely she would have turned to the door when the glass pane broke. Surely she would have run from the kitchen. Roger concluded Amy knew the person who shot her and the signs of a break-in were a red herring.

He glanced down. A Glock .45 was loosely held in his boss’s hand. Same caliber as the pistol that killed Jim
Osborn—he’d seen the ballistic report in Chief Woodward’s sparse file.

“Woody, what have you done?” he whispered.

The detective chief lifted his head. “It’s my fault,” he groaned and dropped his gaze to the pistol. Now his eyes turned up to Roger. “Tell Amy I’m sorry.”

“I’ll take the gun,” Roger said. He knelt. Gently, careful to touch only the trigger guard, he pulled the pistol from Woody’s fingers. He slipped it into his jacket pocket where it clinked against my athame. Exhausted, he sank down next to his boss and pulled out his cell phone.

“Sarge? Detective Frey,” he said when the desk sergeant answered. “I need a bus and a squad car at Chief Woodward’s house.” He glanced at Woody, who still sat unmoving. “Call the crime scene techs and the medical examiner. Oh, and you’d better wake up the deputy chief. Tell him we’ve got a problem.”

Within fifteen minutes, sirens whooped down Hyde Park Road.

Roger spent the rest of the night in a precinct
interrogation room, where Chief Woodard sat, eyes clouded,
while Deputy Chief Reynolds questioned him. Woody answered each question with a blank stare and a moan. It was as if his mind had fled to some warm, distant land.

At last, as the sun began to peek through low clouds, Chief Woodward was led to a holding cell.

***

“I can’t believe Woody would murder anyone, much less his wife,” Roger told us. He dropped his half-eaten cheese sandwich on his plate.

Stunned by the detailed description of the murder scene, Rebecca and I were as silent as Woody must have been during his interrogation.

“I just can’t believe it,” Roger said again. He pushed away the bowl of soup that had gone cold while he spoke. “I’ve known the man ever since I got my gold badge. Ten years. It isn’t in him to do something like this.”

He glanced at Rebecca, then at me. His eyes glistened with tears.

Elvira poked her head from under the table and looked up at Roger. She mewed, sprang onto his lap, and curled up.

I started to reach out to him, but stopped. I sat on my hands to keep them from doing what my heart wanted them to.

Rebecca peered at me and snorted.

I was about to tell her to mind her own business, when Roger groaned. Stroking the cat’s soft white fur, he muttered, “It can’t be.”

“If not Woody, who?” I asked. My eyes shifted to Elvira. I was certain she’d give us the answer.

The cat stood. Her paws on Roger’s chest, she stared at him.

He sniffed and drew his shirtsleeve across his eyes.
“I’ll tell you something,” he said. “Jimmie’s death and Amy
Woodward’s are tied together. And I’ll tell you something else. If
I
don’t find out how, no one will.”