The Magic of Murder (5 page)

I bent over to watch Chief Woodward’s retreating back through Roger’s window. “Why?”

“Said I’m too close to it.”

I thought for a minute. Woody was right. My friend was very good at his job. Sooner or later he’d learn who killed his partner. As angry as he was, he would pass up an arrest, and another killing would hang over the Falls Police Force. At last, I said, “You’ve got to listen to him. He knows what—”

With a raised hand, Roger cut me off. In a monotone, he said, “I’d better get you home.”

***

Roger seemed to relax a bit while we drove. He chatted about the time an army buddy called from Pennsylvania, and told him a couple of bears had wandered into his town. Roger and Jimmy packed their rifles, and drove down—‘ready for bear’ was the way Roger phrased it. It turned out there wasn’t a single ursine creature near that town, so they’d rustled up a couple of kegs, camped out for a week, and bought a pelt at a Seneca Reservation shop on the way home. Back in the Falls, they displayed the pelt and spun yarns about how they’d tracked the bear to its forest lair. The pelt now hung on a wall in Roger’s den.

During his story I smiled in all the appropriate places. But my smile didn’t go further than my lips. I knew my friend. Stubborn might be the best description of him. Combine stubbornness with the grief I knew simmered inside him…well, his apparent calm didn’t fool me.

When we pulled into my driveway, I invited him in. I hoped if I kept him talking it would get him past the worst.

“Can’t.” He tugged at his uniform collar. “Gotta go home, change, and head to the station.”

“I thought Woody doesn’t want you on the case,” I said.

“He doesn’t. What he wants is me where he can make sure I’ll behave myself.”

Roger gave me a rueful smile. His ears were red. Card players would call that a “tell.” I knew about “tells”—for years I’d put them in my stories. Roger’s ears would not have been red if he intended to comply with his boss’s order.

***

Elvira was curled up by the door when I came in. She opened one eye and lifted her head about an inch to acknowledge my presence.

“Sorry to disturb your nap,” I said.

She blinked then yawned. When I walked past and opened the hall closet to hang up my coat, she smacked my leg with her paw.

“What now?” I leaned through the kitchen door. “You’ve got food, you’ve got milk. Leave me alone, I need to think.”

She tilted her head.

I sighed. “All right, I’ll tell you,” I said, and led her into the living room. After tossing my coat across the arm of the wingback chair that had become the cat’s property, I plopped down on the sofa.

She sat at my feet, spine stiff, pink eyes alert.

“It’s Roger,” I said. “I’m worried about him. He’s taking Jim Osborn’s death extremely hard.”

Elvira’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh, that’s right. You don’t know. Jimmy is…was Roger’s partner.”

As if she were processing the information, Elvira sat motionless for a moment. Then she dropped her head and mewed.

“Yeah, I care about Roger. A lot.” I took a deep breath. It was the first time I’d admitted that.

A low purr came from Elvira’s throat.

“I don’t
know
what to do about it.”

She tilted her head again. This time it was as if she asked whether I meant what to do about my feelings for Roger, or how to keep him from seeking justice with the barrel of a gun.

“I don’t know that, either,” I moaned.

The cat grunted.

I groaned. “I suppose you’re right—they
are
the same thing.” I fell back, and hugged a flowered pillow to my chest. “That just makes everything worse.”

She leaped onto the sofa. Keeping her eyes on me, she settled against my leg.

“So, got any ideas?” I asked.

She swung her head until she faced my desk.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Writing a story won’t help him. Won’t help me, either.”

Elvira jumped to the floor. Her tail high, her large rear end swaying, she strutted across the living room. When she reached my desk, she scampered onto the chair, and peered at the computer screen.

I laughed. “You’re going to write if I won’t?” I said. “Go on, let me see you turn the computer on and type something.” I caught my breath. For a minute I was not at all certain she wouldn’t do it.

Her paws tapped. Thank goodness the computer didn’t turn on. The way I felt at the moment, if it had I would have run screaming from my house. The cat was doing something, though. I rose from the sofa, and went to look.

Under her paw was Sarah Goode’s
Book of Shadows
. Elvira was trying to open the cover.

“Why didn’t I think of that?”

She twisted her neck and stared at me.

“Give me a break, will ya?” I said. “I’m new to this witch stuff.”

I pushed her from the chair, sat down, and began to turn pages. On the eighth page, in an old fashioned script that had faded to a faint orange, I found something which might help.

Banishing,
it said. I read what was written beneath:

Use rosemary branches, two feet long. Weave them into a circle. Tie the ends with green cotton thread. Tie to it more rosemary until the wreath is full, then seal the bottom with a red ribbon. Pluck from the field rue, mugwort, and hyssop. Tuck nine into the wreath. Hang it on the front door…

“This will work,” I said, already trying to figure out how I’d explain to Roger why I nailed an herbal wreath to his door. As I said before, my friend doesn’t believe in magic, and I truly doubted he would tolerate my practicing it on him. Still, if I were careful he might never find out.

I could get my hands on most everything in Sarah Goode’s recipe. But mugwort? While I sat, wondering what mugwort was and where I might find some, Elvira tapped my hand.

“What?” I said, bothered by the interruption.

She pushed my hand from the book and tried to turn to the prior page. At least, I think that’s what she wanted to do. To humor her, I leafed back one page. In large, bold print, Sarah had written,
TO CHASE THE DEVIL
.

Hmm,
I thought,
this might be better.

Elvira hissed.

“Yeah, what?” I said to her. “It’s kind of like he’s got the Devil in him.”

I swear, the cat shook her head.

“Okay, what then?” I flipped a few pages forward.

After a minute, Elvira let out what sounded like a sigh.

“This is it?” I examined the page.

Written there was,
Rub cumin seed on the doorway every week while all others sleep to bring peace to the house and all within.

“I can do this,” I said to the cat. “Set my alarm for five in the morning, bundle up, and tiptoe to Roger’s house—”

Elvira slid from the desk to my lap.

My finger on the page, I looked down at her. “This won’t stop him from gunning for Jimmy’s killer, will it?”

She craned her neck so far back, her irises seemed to roll into her skull.

“Need something stronger, huh?”

She blinked.

“I thought so. Better call Rebecca. She’ll know what to do.”

I don’t know how she did it, but the cat shrugged.

Chapter Five

Do it Yourself

            
 
I
leaned against the kitchen counter, and punched seven numbers into the phone.

As if she were waiting for my call, after the first ring I heard, “Black Cat. This is Rebecca.”

“What in heaven’s name is mugwort?” I said. “I looked in Webster’s dictionary. It’s not there.”

She hesitated a moment, to digest what I’d blurted out, I suspected, before she said, “Hello to you, too, Emlyn.”

“Yeah, yeah, hello and all that. Now tell me about mugwort.”

Her tone grew concerned. “What are you fooling around with?”

I felt my face go warm. “Uh, nothing,” I said. “I just need to know what it is.”

“Slow down. I feel as though I’ve walked into the middle of a conversation. Start from the beginning.”

“Okay.” I took a breath. “I’ve told you about my neighbor.”

She listened while I explained what happened, and what I feared Roger intended to do.

“How can I help?” she asked when I finally panted to a stop.

“I need a spell or maybe an amulet that’ll keep him from doing it. But if it’s an amulet, I’ll have to bury it in his backyard so he won’t find out I’m working a spell on him—”

I heard a long laugh. “What you need is air. Inhale deeply. You’re about to hyperventilate.”

I held the phone in front of my face and shouted, “You don’t understand. I have to do something now!”

Rebecca was laughing so hard at this point, it sounded as though
she
couldn’t breathe. At last she settled down enough to get a few words out. “First thing you have to do,” she said, “is stop drinking whatever potion you’ve concocted. I’ve told you, haphazardly mixing herbs isn’t something to fool around with.”

I inhaled through my nose and out through my mouth a couple of times—a relaxation technique I’d learned in the yoga class I took after Kevin and I broke up.

“Okay, now,” she said. “Tell me what you did.”

“Nothing. Well, nothing but read a few pages in Sarah Goode’s book.”

“Sarah’s…? What book?”

I told her.

“Where’d you get that?”

“My mother sent it to me.”

She didn’t respond for more than a minute. When she spoke again, it was at a slow, measured pace. “Listen to me carefully, Emlyn. I’ve read what Sarah Goode was up to. The first Rebecca Nurse wrote about it in a diary that’s been passed down through my family. From what I can tell, she was casting some very advanced spells with her herbs. You’re not near ready to try anything you find in her
Book of Shadows
.”

“But you can. Or maybe together, we could—”

“I don’t know enough, either.”

“We were able to slice the legs out from under Kevin,” I insisted.

“Your ex is a fool. It didn’t take more than a nudge to push him over the edge.”

“But, I’ve got to do something. Roger’s about to walk into a field of quicksand.” If I sounded as though I were begging, it’s because I was.

After another moment of silence, Rebecca said, “You’re
really into this guy.”

I twirled a lock of red hair around my finger. “Well, maybe. A little.”

“You poor thing.” She clicked her tongue. “Love is what got your ancestor hanged.”

Love?
I thought. Nothing I’d read about the Salem witch hunt said anything to suggest such a predicate. It didn’t matter. At the moment I was too desperate to wonder about my ancestor’s arcane history. “I’ve got to
do
something,” I repeated.

“The best thing is to stay out of it,” Rebecca advised.

“I can’t.”

She sighed. “No, I suppose not.”

“So?”

“You could try to work on the case with your boyfriend.
With you along, he won’t dare kill anybody.”

I unwound my hair from my finger, but a few strands got stuck. “Ouch!” I cried as I yanked my hand loose.

“What did you do now?”

“Nothing. And he’s not my boyfriend!” I don’t know what Rebecca thought, but to my ears I sounded like a petulant child.

“Uh-huh.” She laughed again. “He doesn’t know it yet, is that it? I can give you a simple spell to fix that.”

Outside my kitchen window, a car horn blared. When I looked, I saw I saw a yellow Volkswagen slide into a snow drift to avoid a BMW racing around the curve in the road. Feeling as though I were as much a wreck as what I just witnessed, my worry about Roger turned to annoyance. “This isn’t helping!” I shouted into the phone.

“Okay, how about this: the only way to keep him out of trouble is to solve the crime before he does. Once the killer’s in jail, it’ll be too late for Roger to go after him.”

“Easy for
you
to say. I’m not a detective. Where do I begin?”

“Why, at the beginning, of course. Every story has a beginning. You’re a writer, you know that.”

“Okay wise guy, where’s the beginning? Go on, tell me that.”

“You’re Sarah Goode’s heir, you’ll figure it out,” Rebecca said then added, “But, Emlyn, while you go about it, don’t mess around with anything you find in her book. At least, not until I see it and we figure out how to keep you from blowing up your entire neighborhood.”

“Thanks a whole bunch,” I said.

“Always happy to help a friend.” She hung up.

I held the phone away and muttered, “Some friend. Go ahead, leave me hanging with no idea of what to do.”

I tried to slam the phone down, missed, picked it up with two hands, and grumbled into the receiver, “Just wait till you need help with something, Rebecca Nurse. ‘Sure’, I’ll say. Then I’ll pack a bag and go away for the weekend. That’s what I’ll do.”

When I tried again to hang up, I smacked my pouting lip with the receiver—but only hard enough to feed my annoyance.

Finally rid of the phone, I dropped onto a stool by the counter.

Elvira poked her head through the kitchen door. As if she were uncertain whether it was safe to come in, she peered around.

I turned on her. “And you, fur ball—you’re no help, either.”

She backed out of the kitchen.

I sat hunched over the counter, flicking the point of the pencil I kept near the notepad I write my shopping lists on.

As if she were in the room, I heard Rebecca say,
Don’t sit there sulking. Start at the beginning
.

I lifted my head.
She’s right,
I thought.
I’m Sarah Goode’s heir. I can figure this out.

Elvira tiptoed in.

I smiled down at her. “It’s okay, cat. I’m over my snit.”

She sat at my feet, as if waiting for me to share my plan.

“Rebecca said I should start at the beginning,” I told her. “Where else can the beginning be but at Jim Osborn’s home?”

She nodded.

“I’m glad you agree,” I said.

She turned her back on me, and sauntered to my wingback chair. I guess cats don’t like sarcasm.

I didn’t have time to worry about sensitive feline feelings. From the refrigerator, I pulled the casserole I’d baked a few days before when I got stuck for the next scene in
The Swamp Witch
(changing my focus to cooking sometimes helps me get past a bout of writer’s block). I uncovered the baking dish. The ziti and cheese with chicken, mushrooms, and broccoli would serve my purpose. After a funeral, people expend so much energy in mourning they don’t prepare proper meals. This casserole would disguise my real reason for stopping by.

***

Most of the houses on the Pine Avenue side of downtown Niagara Falls were two-story wood-frame
homes built before the Second World War. The Osborns’ was newer—a brick ranch set on a well cared-for plot of land. In the spring and summer, the driveway and the front of the house would be lined with tulips, sunflowers, black-eyed Susans. When Jimmy was off duty, while Marge sunned herself on a lawn chair, he would be on his knees gardening. That is, when he didn’t go off to hoist a few at Flannery’s, the neighborhood bar the Falls cops frequented. On this late winter afternoon, the perennials hadn’t yet begun to poke through the frozen soil, and, as if it, too, was in mourning, the leafless willow on the front lawn drooped under the weight of snow.

Parked at the curb in front of the house was the green ’67 Chevy Malibu Sean Ryan had restored.

I pulled into the driveway behind a silver Pontiac. Of indeterminate age, the car had a dented rear fender and a tied-down trunk. The trim around all the doors was rusted. This was the vehicle Jimmy drove the fifteen blocks to the police station each day. Next to the Pontiac was a sporty new Corvette.

Not the kind of car a cop owns,
I thought as I lifted the casserole from the seat beside me.

The Osborns’ daughter answered the door when I rang the bell. I handed her the casserole and said, “Jenny, I’m so sorry about your father.”

She offered me her right cheek to kiss. Though she turned away, I again saw the dark ring under her left eye. At another time I would have said something about the bruise. This day, though, my mind was locked firmly on what brought me here.

“Is your mom up for company?” I asked.

Silently, Jennifer stepped aside to let me in.

Other than the bedrooms and kitchen, the house consisted of a single large room—what decorators call an open design. The living room set was in a semicircle around a low glass coffee table. These furnishings were oriented with the couch placed in front of the oriel window. Farthest from the front door was a formal dining area: a glass table, six chairs upholstered in a light fabric, and a heavy china cabinet. In contrast to Marge’s appearance at the funeral, the house was perfectly neat.

I leaned in to look around the wall at the entry. Marge was stretched out on the couch. Her shoulder-length auburn hair was pulled back into a tight pony tail, and she’d changed from her funeral dress into a floral housecoat that almost hid an expanded waistline.

What kind of friend have I been,
I thought,
not to have noticed how she’s let herself go?

Jennifer held the casserole to her chest. As I’ve mentioned, she was a younger version of her mother: same color hair, same delicate features. But she was several inches shorter (in that, she took after her father). At twenty-two, gravity had already pulled her upper body down around her waist and thighs.

“Mom’s resting,” Jen said, but didn’t move. Though she’d had her adenoids removed along with her tonsils when she was six, she still spoke with a decidedly nasal undertone.

“Is it all right if I see her?” I asked.

Jennifer glanced over her shoulder before she said, “Sure. I’ll…uh, put this in the kitchen.”

I’d expected to see a house full of people, chattering away in the hope they’d take Marge’s mind off her loss for a short while. Instead, it seemed as though Jennifer was afraid to let anyone in. And if no one else was here, who owned the Corvette?

Once in the living room, I dragged an armchair next to my friend. As I reached for her hand, I said, “I won’t stay long. I just want to find out if there’s anything I can do for you.”

Marge sniffed and shifted her body to gaze through the window. “I can’t believe he—” She shook her head then glanced around the living room, as if searching for her husband. “No, I can’t believe…”

Over the years, Marge had become quite taciturn. That was, I supposed, her mechanism for coping with the fear always present in the mind of a cop’s wife. Jennifer tended to be the same. I used to think she’d learned this behavior from her mother. Before the week ended, I would find out this wasn’t the case.

I pulled Marge’s hand onto my lap. “Do you know what happened?”

She slid her hand from mine and took a tissue from the box on the end table. “That’s what’s so crazy. Jimmy just went out to have a drink with the guys.” She didn’t wipe her eyes. “It was after dinner. He said he’d be back in an
hour. Three hours later…” She folded the tissue, and stuffed
it in her sleeve. “I’ve always been scared something like this would happen. Every day of our lives it made me crazy.” Leaning on an elbow, she turned to me. “Don’t ever marry a cop, Emmy. Promise me you won’t.”

My thoughts flashed to Roger, but only for a moment. I quickly buried the idea beneath the rubble of my past. After my time with Kevin, I had no intention of marrying anyone else. As they say, once blistered you shy away from the stove.

“Do they think it might have had something to do with a case he was working on?” I asked.

Marge slid up against the cushions of the couch, and shrugged her shoulders. “I asked Woody, but he said he can’t talk about an open investigation.”

Jennifer came into the room, followed by her husband, Sean. They were proof of the adage that opposites are like magnets. Where she was short, he was over six feet tall. Where she approached hefty, he was as thin as the maypole my dad erected in our backyard. Moving in unison, they pulled chairs up on either side of me. Then, with a quick glance at his wife, Sean lifted his chair, and moved next to her.