Dead Witch on a Bridge

by Gretchen Galway

  “Let’s go inside,” I said, walking to my back door. Being within the boundaries of my protection spells was more appealing than ever.

  Jasper followed me into the kitchen, Random at his side, and accepted the can of cold coffee I offered him. “I should’ve told you,” he said, popping the can open. “I’m sorry.”

  “The Protectorate isn’t perfect, God knows, but I don’t quite understand why you hate it so much,” I said. “I’m a little bitter, for obvious reasons, but I’ll get over it. Could this maybe be a little… personal on your part?”

  Flushing, he set the can on the counter. “I was only joking about wanting to be an agent. I’d never work for them.”

  His harsh tone surprised me. He sounded like he meant it. “They don’t deserve you anyway,” I said. And then, to return to the subject at hand, “I need to get my Jeep towed and get Birdie home.”

  “Didn’t you say the police impounded her car?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “They must have some pretty serious evidence against her. Why are you in such a rush to help her out?”

  “He died of a heart attack.”

  “She ran him over,” he said.

  “We don’t know that.”

  “But the police seem to.” He gave me an incredulous look. “I’d think you’d want whoever left him on the bridge to suffer.”

  For a moment I thought of how I, too, had left him on the bridge. “Until I talk to Birdie, I’m not going to believe the worst.”

  He retrieved the can of coffee and lifted it to his lips. “How well did you really know her? I know she’s your neighbor, but do you know anything about her childhood, her family, her life before coming to Silverpool?”

  “I know a little,” I said. “She had a single mom, grew up in Santa Rosa, went to the junior college.”

  “That describes a significant percentage of the nonmag people in Sonoma County.”

  “Trust me. She’s not the type to hide things. Even when she should. She can’t stop herself from talking too much.”

  He grimaced. “I hope she has a good lawyer.”

  “How would she? She’s as broke as I am.” Reminded of my useless wallet and phone, I added, “And I was mugged by fairies last night.”

  “Mugged? You said they ran you off the road.”

  “They also stole all my money, all my cards, and my phone.”

  “Let me help you.” He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. “Sounds like you need as much help as Birdie.”

  It was nice of him to offer, but growing up under circumstances that were less than secure had taught me to anticipate emergencies. “Thanks, but I’ve got—”

  “What the hell?” He pulled a wad of leaves out of his wallet and showed them to me.

  “Oh, they found you too,” I said, trying not to laugh. Maybe the fairies behind the bar at the winery were responsible. “I wonder if they got everyone who came to the service.”

  He looked through the rest of his wallet with increasing irritation. “They took everything. My credit cards, my license, everything.”

  “Me too.”

  He swore. “Now I’m going to have to take a day off to go to the DMV. Why would they want my credit cards? They can steal anything they want.”

  “You’re the fairy expert,” I said. “You tell me.”

  “Touché.” Sighing, he shoved his wallet, leaves and all, into his back pocket. “Looks like I can’t help you after all.”

  “It’s fine. I have an emergency stash here at the house.”

  “Stash of what?”

  “The basics—cash and an extra credit card. Copies of everything else, just in case.” I even had a duplicate driver’s license. Three, actually, and one was even in my own name.

  “That’s a good idea,” he said. “I wish I’d done that.”

  “It’s the only way Malcolm Bellrose is like a Boy Scout. Always prepared. He drilled it into me that some of the best tricks weren’t magical at all.”

  “Glad he did something good for you.”

  “Comes in handy more often than I’d like. Every once in a while, I’d like more than the worst-case scenario, you know?”

  “I don’t suppose you have an extra car, too?”

  “Sadly no. Couldn’t afford that. Could you give me a ride so I can meet the tow truck? It’ll probably have to come from Riovaca.”

  He scratched Random behind the ears and threw his empty can into the recycling bin near the back door. “Of course. Glad to help.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The tow truck driver was a short, muscled man who seemed to be on the first day of the job. He struggled with the winch more than I’d like and seemed too nervous to make conversation. Only when my Jeep was safely on the shoulder again did he let out the breath he was holding and offer me a weak smile.

  “You’re lucky,” he said. “The other guy rolled down a cliff. They think he died instantly.”

  But while he’d fallen, he’d probably been wide awake. I shuddered, imagining Nick’s terror, how he might’ve been cursing the day he met a witch. “Were you… called to the scene?”

  “My boss. But there was nothing he could do. The cops could barely get down there to see the body.” He patted the Jeep, which was scratched but otherwise undamaged. “Yeah, you’re real lucky.”

  I was lucky—and grateful for the magic that had kept me alive. From the copy of my AAA card from my emergency files at home, the driver wrote up my paperwork and receipt, again with the deliberation and slowness of a new hire.

  While I waited, trying not to show my impatience, I saw a cop car drive past with Birdie in the back seat.

  Headed back to Silverpool.

  I waved, but it was too late; she hadn’t seen me.

  Had they let her go? I stared down the road after her, then searched the forest for any sign of fairy activity. Nothing. Not even a leaf of redwood sorrel twitched in the stillness.

  Finally the tow truck driver handed me a copy of my paperwork. “I hate this road,” he said. “Everyone does.”

  I thanked him and returned home, eager to talk to Birdie. But when I walked over, she didn’t answer the door.

  “Birdie? It’s Alma,” I called out, then waited. “I brought Random with me.” I smiled down at the dog, hoping he would bark a hello, but he only panted.

  Jasper and Livia had both been quick to condemn her, and I had to wonder if I was being gullible again. I was the trained Protectorate agent who hadn’t been willing to believe demons could really be all that bad. Who was to say Birdie, a young woman without money, property, or powerful friends, would risk calling the police after striking a body on a bridge in the middle of the night? Somebody else had killed Tristan—and I’d felt the magic residue of that—but maybe she had been the one to run him over and then run away.

  She had been acting strange the past day or two.

  “Birdie, please answer if you’re awake.” I knocked again. A night in jail would be exhausting. Maybe she was in bed. Had she been released on bail or because she was innocent?

  Had Willy sprung her from her cage, as he’d offered? But no—the police drove her home.

  Just as I was turning to leave, she opened the door. “You brought Random? Isn’t he so sweet? I promised him a walk, but then I let both of you down.” She wiped her nose with a tissue.

  She looked terrible. Sunken eye sockets, limp hair clinging to the sides of her head.

  “I had car trouble on the way to the police station,” I said. “I was trying to find out what happened and see if I could help. I’m sorry I didn’t make it.”

  She stepped aside and held out her hand to invite me in. “I saw an accident on the road on my way back home,” she said. “The cop said some man from Silverpool went off at Black Snake Road. They found his body crushed under his truck.”

  “His name was Nick Takata. Did you know him?”

  “Oh no! I used to ring him up all the time at Cypress. He did hardwood floo
rs or drywall or something.” She petted Random, scrambling in to greet her, then closed the door behind us.

  “Custom woodworking,” I said.

  Birdie shook her head. “I thought Silverpool would be a safe place to live.”

  “How are you doing? It’s got to be rough, spending the night in jail.”

  “Thank God, Madge could give me an alibi,” she said. “They never would’ve believed me without Madge backing me up.”

  Margaret and Chuck Sauter were the eightysomething couple who lived in the neighboring house with the chickens. “You were with Madge when…”

  “When somebody I guess stole my RAV4 and ran over Tristan. After he was already dead? I don’t know because I wasn’t there, which they didn’t believe until they talked to Madge. Thank God, they finally talked to Madge. We were playing Yahtzee.”

  “There’s physical evidence on your car,” I said.

  I didn’t mean to sound like I was doubting her, because I believed her completely, but she got defensive.

  “Ask Madge if you don’t believe me. She got Yahtzee twice. Not like she’s going to forget that in a hurry. She was so proud of herself she kept the scorecard and stuck it on the fridge with little red Sharpie stars all over it. Usually we use a pencil and write lightly so we can erase and reuse them. Neither one of us wants to use good money on new Yahtzee scorecards.”

  “I believe you. I was just trying to figure out who could’ve stolen your car.”

  “I didn’t know it was stolen! The cops say it was, but I never saw it missing. That morning you gave me a ride to Livia’s, I tried to drive it and the battery was dead. I can’t afford fixing it until I get paid on Friday, so I just used my bike for a few days. I didn’t look at it again. But…” She trailed off.

  “What?”

  “There was blood all over the bumper and the wheels. They wanted to know why I hadn’t noticed.”

  The thought of Tristan’s body under the wheels of her SUV made me recoil. It took me a few long moments to recover. “Your garage is dark.”

  “That’s what I told them. I don’t usually bother to turn on the light because when the garage door opens I can see, but by then I’m inside the car, backing out. Except I wasn’t because the car had a dead battery.”

  “You’re right,” I said.

  “About the dead battery?”

  “No, you’re right about being lucky Madge had two Yahtzees that night,” I said. Nonmag police never would’ve believed her story without corroboration.

  “I didn’t feel lucky at the time,” Birdie said. “I kept rolling fives.”

  “Five can be lucky,” I said softly, thinking how I could look for another kind of evidence. I’d spelled my house to repel ill will, but Birdie had been vulnerable. Most fae weren’t as powerful as Willy—at least I hoped not. “Do you mind if I look around your garage?”

  “There’s still police tape around it. You can’t go inside. And the car is still impounded.”

  “I’ll just walk around the outside, if that’s OK.”

  Birdie looked at me, head tilted to one side, oddly quiet. “Sure,” she said finally. “Thanks.”

  “It’s probably hopeless,” I said. “It’s not like I’m a cop.”

  “I’m glad. After last night, I don’t even think the Riovaca cop is so cute anymore.”

  “Maybe I can see if there are footsteps coming from the road or another neighbor,” I said lamely. What could Birdie expect for me, a supposedly normal person, to find that the police hadn’t?

  “Hey, maybe Random will smell something important,” Birdie said. “Bring him with you, see how he reacts.”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” I lied, picking up his leash. It would’ve been a great excuse if I’d thought of it myself.

  Random and I went out her front door and around to the detached garage to the side of the house. Bright yellow tape, stretched around the old, gray-green structure, fluttered in the breeze.

  When I was still ten steps away from the driveway, I felt the residue of magic lingering in the cracked asphalt.

  I knelt down and set my palm on the ground. “How about you, Random? Smell anything?”

  Random was sniffing everything the way he always did but didn’t give anything away.

  I put my hand on my necklace and cast out my senses to detect more of the magical residue. It was faint, already trampled by humans and dogs, birds and sunlight, but there was no doubt it was magic. Like an odor, it spread from the trees into the driveway, fading at the edges and hard to detect after inhaling it for a while.

  I made a show of looking at the ground for footprints, but I’d found what I feared. Something or someone of magical means had been near her house, probably in her garage, but I couldn’t be sure of that. As her neighbor, I could’ve attracted the fae, witch, or demon myself, and I was only detecting the fact that they’d been nearby.

  But knowing her RAV4 had struck Tristan made me think magic was used to steal it. Or somebody wanted me to think it was.

  “Well?” Birdie asked from the front yard.

  “I don’t know. I just… I just don’t understand.” Unable to pinpoint the magic further, I walked over to her.

  She looked away, sighing. “Thanks anyway. You’re nice to try to help.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t be sorry. I should’ve locked the garage. We’re not far from the main road. Obviously somebody came up here looking for an easy ride to steal and brought it back after they ran over a guy and freaked out.”

  Her analysis didn’t seem entirely plausible to me, but I nodded. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.” I guided Random to the road, knowing if I hurried, I would be able to drive to Riovaca in time to buy myself a new phone before they closed. If I saw the tall fairy again, I’d run him over.

  “The only other possibility is Livia got really upset with Tristan and took it.”

  I turned. “Took what?”

  “My car. She had a set of keys.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Staring at Birdie, the thought hit me that the last time I’d seen Livia, she’d been in a hurry to leave town.

  The expression on Birdie’s face was unusually hard. “It would be like her, don’t you think? To get so angry with a person she’d run him over? Even if she was—no, especially if she was in huge love with him. She might’ve found something out, and that was the final straw. Bam. She’s smart enough not to use her own car, so—”

  “I don’t believe it,” I said.

  “I do. I don’t think she could kill somebody close up, but I’ve seen her drive around town in that SUV as if it was a tank, gliding through stop signs and speeding over crosswalks if she sees a pedestrian and doesn’t want to slow down because she’s too important and has things to do.”

  I was shocked by Birdie’s uncharacteristic venom. Having had my own rough night, I empathized with Birdie’s short temper, but it was obvious she was too tired to think clearly.

  “First of all,” I said, trying to reason with her, “he had a heart attack. It wasn’t a car that killed him. Secondly—”

  “Maybe she scared him first, threatening to run him down, watched until he keeled over, and then waited a few minutes before finally driving, so to speak, the message home.” Angry tears shone in Birdie’s eyes.

  “Secondly,” I said quickly, “what you’re describing sounds like a crime of passion. She wouldn’t drive up here, get your car, run him over, drive back, put the RAV4 in the garage, and then return home.”

  “All right, so she planned it. Way in advance. You know what she’s like. Really organized. And she did it not because she was actually in love with him, because who could put up with watching him sleep with everyone else all the time and never with you? But because she thought he was going to leave her something in his will.” Birdie’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t know how bad she needs the money. She lost everything trying to save her family winery in Napa. She acts ri
ch, but she’s as broke as we are. Broker.”

  “Forget it, Birdie. How could she have done it without being seen? One of us would’ve seen her huge white SUV. We both went out at some point. And why use your car? It makes no sense,” I said. “Besides, why would he leave her much of anything in his will? He’s been rejecting her since they met.”

  Birdie turned away, nodding, and began to walk unsteadily to her front door. “You’re right. Forget it. I’m hysterical. You should slap me like they do in old movies.”

  I wanted to tell her she wasn’t crazy, that there were beings and forces she couldn’t see or comprehend but did indeed exist.

  But smart witches didn’t do that. We’d learned the hard way.

  “How about I bring over something for you to eat?” I asked. “I don’t know how to make a casserole, but I make an excellent quesadilla.”

  “No, please don’t. I’m getting in bed. I’m going to put in my earplugs and cover my eyes and pretend none of this is happening. I’ll go back to dealing with life tomorrow.”

  “If you need any—”

  She waved before she hurried inside and shut the door in my face.

  Deciding Birdie had a sensible plan for the rest of the day, I returned to my house, planning to do the same. I could get a new phone when I went to Santa Rosa for a replacement (authentic) driver’s license. And my antihistamines had kicked in, making me feel as if my limbs weren’t quite attached to my body. My episode as a cat also led to a bone-deep exhaustion that demanded hours, sometimes days, of sleep.

  I stretched out in bed, thinking that whatever was going to happen next, I would need my strength to deal with it.

  Eyes closed, blankets pulled up to my chin, feeling Random curled up against my thigh, I began to drift off into a soft, pleasant dreamland.

  Until I remembered what had happened to Nick. If I hadn’t tracked him down because of the cabinet, would he have died last night? Like Birdie, he was a powerless nonmag, a bystander.

  I rolled to one side, telling myself magic was everywhere, Shadow was in every corner, I didn’t have the power to protect everyone. If I wanted the strength to find out what had happened, I needed to sleep. The cat shifting had drained me. Sleep, just sleep.