The Wynne Witch

by H. P. Bayne

“There’s some suggestion Neil’s son Callum might have been spending time with Mildred shortly before her death. I want to find him and talk to him, but Neil and Drea don’t know where to find him. Drea sent me an article written when Callum and his friends were busted a while back. I’d hope maybe you could find someone to run the names and see if anything comes back in terms of addresses.”

  Lachlan didn’t make Sully wait long. “Yeah, okay. Shoot me the message with the article, and I’ll do what I can. But if you’re going to go knocking down criminals’ doors, for God’s sake, take your brother with you.”

  Sully smirked. “No problem. Knowing Dez, if I went alone and got myself killed, he’d kill me all over again.”

  Sully waited until he’d pulled into his parking spot before firing off a quick text to Dez.

  Let me know when you get home

  A reply came within seconds: K. Soon

  While he waited on Dez inside his apartment, Sully called Marc Echoles. More than a friend, Marc was a professor of Occult Studies at the university and boasted an incredible knowledge of all things weird. Prior to Sully’s psychic abilities becoming common knowledge, Marc had been one of the trusted few Sully had let in on the secret. He’d been as invaluable then as he was now.

  “I’ve got a situation.”

  Marc chuckled. “If I had a nickel. What’s happening?”

  Sully gave him the rundown, detailing the events the Wynnes had described and what he himself had observed. He didn’t provide the clients’ names, uncertain whether it might put him in breach of confidentiality.

  “I’m kind of at a loss about the two-ghost thing. I mean, Lachlan thinks maybe they’re the same person, but I’m not convinced.”

  “If you’re not convinced, I’m not convinced. Describe them to me again.”

  “The one I saw is a woman wearing a long black dress with a veil—apparently the sort of thing Mildred was buried in. The woman I saw when I touched the water was this hag-like creature—rail-thin, almost like a skeleton; long, knotted, grey hair; pale eyes; and black teeth. And her skin was really pasty grey too, like—”

  “Black teeth, you said?”

  Sully raised his brows though Marc wouldn’t see. “Yeah, why?”

  “Give me a minute.”

  Sully listened to sounds of shifting papers, thuds of items—likely textbooks—being dropped and a muttered curse word or two. Marc’s office was a mess at the best of times, books and students’ exams and essays scattered everywhere and a desk the surface of which Sully wasn’t sure he’d ever set eyes on. He knew Marc had uncovered his keyboard when rapid tapping noises came through the phone.

  “The woman your client saw—you said she screamed, right?” Marc asked.

  “That’s what he told us,” Sully said. “And the vision I had, her mouth was wide open, like she was screaming. I didn’t hear it, of course.”

  “This vision of yours, do you believe you were seeing it through your own eyes or through Mildred’s?”

  “Without communicating with her in more detail, hard to say, but my guess is I was picking up on something Mildred saw. It’s one of the reasons I think I’m dealing with two ghosts, not one.”

  Marc made a humming noise. “I know you aren’t keen on revealing personal details about your clients, but do you know if they’re of Irish stock?”

  Sully thought about their last name. “I don’t think so. I kind of think it might be Welsh.”

  “Aha!” The exclamation from Marc was so loud, Sully nearly dropped the phone. “I suspected as much when you mentioned the teeth. You’ve heard of banshees, of course.”

  Said as if Sully would be an idiot if he hadn’t. Luckily, he had.

  “Yeah. You think the screaming woman is a banshee?”

  “Of a sort. The Welsh, in fact, have their own version of a banshee. Those from old Welsh stock have been said to be visited by a spectre known as the Gwrach y Rhibyn. No doubt I’m pronouncing it wrong, but Gwrach, I’m given to understand, translates to ‘witch.’ So Witch of Rhibyn. They’re said to be river spirits. Might there be a river around there, by chance?”

  Sully’s heart gave a thud. He’d been staring out the window but now paced to the pullout so he could sit. “Yeah, there is.”

  “The Witch of Rhibyn is said to have a cadaverous appearance—skeletal and sickly-looking. They have long, dishevelled hair and black, fang-like teeth. Oh, and wings. Did your lady have fangs and wings?”

  “No to both. Black teeth, yeah. Definitely no wings.”

  “Maybe she hasn’t received them yet.”

  Sully raised a brow. “Received what?”

  “Her wings. Maybe you’ve got to wait for a bell to ring.” He paused and Sully suspected he’d missed the punchline.

  “It’s a Wonderful Life? Haven’t you seen it?” The disappointment in Marc’s voice was clear.

  “Oh,” Sully said. “Yeah. Sorry.”

  Marc cleared his throat and went on. “Anyhoo, could be a simpler explanation. I can’t imagine spirits like this are frequently seen, even among the Welsh, so it could be rumours have built them up to be much weirder than they already are. The point is this. If your clients have indeed seen a Witch of Rhibyn, they need to be extremely cautious.”

  Sully sat up straight. “Why?”

  “I can’t imagine most people are eager to see a spirit, but this one in particular is to be avoided. She’s said to be an omen of approaching death.”

  7

  Marc had upped the ante significantly.

  Sully picked up a couple of pizzas on the way to Dez and Eva’s late in the afternoon, intending to discuss the matter with them. Dez would hate the thought of a banshee, so Sully hoped he could soften the blow with food.

  He was waiting on the front step with the takeout when Dez and Eva pulled up. Dez’s face broke into a beaming grin as he caught sight of the boxes.

  “All meat?” Dez asked by way of greeting.

  He was forced to ignore him as Pax charged, tail wagging joyfully at the sight of his former owner. Sully, Pax wiggling around his legs for attention, passed Dez the boxes. As Sully wrestled with the dog, Dez opened the lids. Sully guessed he’d seen the all-meat pizza when his grin widened.

  “Yes! I love you.”

  Sully was uncertain whether Dez had been addressing him or the pizza.

  Dez carried the boxes to the door while Pax trailed along behind, nose having caught wind of the food. Sully took advantage of the break to hug his sister-in-law and nine-year-old niece.

  “Good to see you, bro,” Eva said while Kayleigh clung to Sully’s middle.

  “Did you get me pineapple?” Kayleigh asked.

  Sully smiled as he met her wide, hopeful eyes. “Course I did. I love Hawaiian too.”

  Kayleigh released him and charged through the doorway, allowing Sully and Eva to head inside together.

  “I hear you’ve caught another spooky case,” Eva said. “How bad is this one going to freak out my husband?”

  Sully grimaced. “Probably pretty bad.”

  Eva frowned. “Oh boy.”

  By the time they entered the kitchen, Dez had set the pizza on the table and was laying out four plates and napkins.

  “Come eat while it’s still warm,” he said.

  Sully left the ghost conversation until after supper. No sense spoiling Dez’s appetite—not that there was much risk of that, the way he was devouring his meal. He polished off most of the all-meat, leaving Sully, Eva and Kayleigh to split the other. Dez sacrificed one of his pieces for Pax, picking off the meat for the dog to enjoy.

  Afterward, once Kayleigh had headed downstairs to watch TV, Dez packed up the few leftovers and placed them in the fridge. “Thanks for bringing supper over.”

  Sully deposited the dirty plates into the dishwasher. “Not a problem.”

  “So what’s the deal with the latest case? Anything new?”

  Eva smirked and raised her brows, taking this as her cue to beat a hasty retr
eat from the kitchen. Dez’s eyes followed her before turning, horror-stricken, to Sully.

  “God, what?”

  Sully waited until he and Dez were seated at the table before launching into a full explanation of the day’s interviews and his following conversation with Marc. As expected, the mention of Marc’s reference to the Witch of Rhibyn and the corresponding description of the screaming ghost had Dez turning the same shade as the spectre.

  “It’s not enough we’ve got the Woman in Black to contend with, we’ve got a bloody banshee too? How the hell do you find this stuff, Sull?”

  “I don’t. It finds me.”

  Dez wasn’t mollified if his expression had anything to say about the matter. “So what you’re telling me is our new clients are at risk of death if we don’t figure out who killed the old lady?” Dez grimaced. “No pressure at all, huh?”

  Sully met the smile. “Not for you and me.”

  “What do you think, then? We start searching for the kid tomorrow?”

  “Hopefully, Lachlan’s looking into it as we speak. Drea sent me a newspaper article with the names of some people charged alongside Callum in the recent past. Hopefully, one of them will know where to find him.”

  “Great. So all we have to do is confront a few drug dealers, and voila, we’ll find our potential murder suspect.”

  Sully snorted. “Voila?”

  Dez shrugged. “Kayleigh’s taking French at school. She’s been saying it a lot lately. I’m curious about something. Given Mildred was murdered and she willed her property to Neil and Drea, wouldn’t it make sense her ghost would want to protect them from anything similar happening to them?”

  Sully leaned back and crossed his arms as he considered. “Except for the business with the curtains. She seems pretty determined to keep things her way. Ghosts like that generally aren’t happy to have new people inside their homes.”

  “So why will it to them if she didn’t want them living there?”

  “She had to leave it to someone. Doesn’t mean she intended for them to live there. Might be she just didn’t want it going to someone outside the family or who would let it get run down.”

  Dez remained quiet a moment. “Hey, so if Neil’s seeing this witch thing or whatever, how long do you think he has?”

  Sully shrugged. “No idea. Doesn’t even have to be him—could be anyone close to him.” He frowned. “And not knowing’s the worst part.”

  Lachlan texted later with a short series of addresses in the Riverview neighbourhood and assurances he was working on getting a booking photo. When Sully returned to his apartment that evening, Dez came with him, stating they’d be able to set out early the next morning.

  “Best to try to catch them before they’ve had time to slam their first hit of the day,” Dez said. “Good luck getting a straight reply out of them once they’re high on meth.”

  Lachlan had even broken the names and addresses down by priority—those more likely to be of help versus those with whom they likely didn’t stand a hope in hell. Dez told Sully he recognized the first two.

  “Liam Hofner is a decent enough guy when he’s straight,” Dez said. “Get him in the middle of a meth binge, though, and he’s full-psychotic. Pip Radler is a jerk twenty-four-seven.”

  “But he’s the second guy on the list,” Sully pointed out.

  Dez offered a wry smile. “Which tells me the last two guys are beyond uncooperative.”

  A quick internet check confirmed it. The final two names would be of no help. One had since been sent to prison for murder after a drug deal gone wrong. The other had taken the heat—and the longest prison term—for the bust that had landed Callum in trouble a couple of years ago.

  “All good, but why give us addresses in Riverview if the last two are in prison?” Dez asked.

  Sully scrolled farther down the email Lachlan had sent.

  “The addresses are their last-known residences. Lachlan believes they both still have family there. Need be, they might be able to contact the guys in prison—if the families don’t have word on Callum themselves.”

  The explanation seemed good enough for Dez, who headed over to the pullout to lie down. “Don’t know about you, man, but I’m bushed. If we’re dealing with the likes of Pip Radler tomorrow, I want a solid sleep first.”

  Sully was about to crawl into bed too when it occurred to him he should touch base with one other person.

  Dez was already snoring, so Sully took his phone into the bathroom so he wouldn’t disturb him. Not that it would have made a difference either way, not the way Dez slept.

  Sliding first up onto the counter, Sully dialled the number for Forbes Raynor. A sergeant with the Kimotan Rapids Police Department’s Major Crimes unit, Forbes would have access to any file that might have been opened on Mildred Wynne’s death. As a sudden death, police would have responded. Whether Major Crimes would have been called in, Sully wasn’t sure.

  Forbes answered on the second ring. “Hey, Sully. How’s it going?”

  They’d come a long way, the two of them. Forbes had once loathed him. Funny what discovering they were half-brothers had done to Forbes’s attitude.

  “I’m okay. How about you?”

  “Tired. Working a homicide case downtown. Hopefully won’t turn into one of yours.”

  “You have a suspect?”

  “Better than that. We have a guy dead to rights on it. Got him on surveillance video and everything. One of those open and shut jobs. But the paperwork … ugh.”

  Sully smiled into his phone. “You have my sympathies. Forbes, I was hoping to ask you about something. We’re working a case—”

  Forbes interrupted. “One of your kind of cases?” The question had come with a smirk.

  “Yeah, one of mine.” He gave Forbes a quick rundown of the case so far, including descriptions of the ghosts involved and what he’d learned from Jax. “Dez and I are going tomorrow to try to track down Callum Wynne. Best case, maybe he’ll have an idea about who killed Mildred. Worst case, he did it himself.”

  “When are any of your jobs ‘best case’?”

  A fair point. “I’m hoping for the best at this point. The family’s been through a lot, some of it because of Callum. I don’t want to have to tell them their son’s responsible for a homicide. Speaking of—”

  Forbes interrupted with a groan. “Here it comes. The part where you ask me to check our files. I’m not supposed to do stuff like that, you know.”

  “I know. I won’t ask to see it or anything.”

  “Lucky me. Look, we both know Lachlan’s got someone—maybe more than one—inside the KRPD to ferret out information for him. Why not ask him to work his snitches?”

  “Because it looks like the case will need to be reopened, which means someone in Major Crimes will have to come on board. I trust you and wanted to give you a heads-up. This call isn’t just about asking for info.”

  Silence on the other end lasted a couple of beats. “Okay. I hear you. I appreciate you looping me in. Do you have anything right now that would lead me to wanting to reopen this thing—other than the fact you’ve seen a ghost, I mean? It might come as a surprise, but the fact my half-brother saw a dead woman doesn’t count as evidence.”

  Sully rolled his eyes. Sometimes, the old Forbes still shone through. “Shockingly, it doesn’t come as a surprise. No, I don’t have enough yet. Hopefully, once Dez and I can track down the right people, we’ll have something for you. If you could have a peek at the file tomorrow and let me know if there’s anything in there that could help, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Wasn’t my file. I can tell you that right now. I’ll look like a real asshole if I’m caught digging.”

  Sully let his response come through a smile. “Since when has that bothered you before?”

  “Piss off.” But the reply was followed by a chuckle. “All right, I’ll check. But keep me in the loop. And for God’s sake, don’t go getting yourself killed. You’ve got a real affinity with tig
ht spaces.”

  Sully pinched at the bridge of his nose as he considered the truth to Forbes’s last statement.

  “Don’t I know it.”

  8

  Sully nudged Dez awake as the sun began to rise, its first pink rays poking through the blinds covering the apartment’s east windows.

  They took turns in the shower before downing a quick breakfast of eggs and toast. Sully was pretty sure the paltry meal wouldn’t hold Dez for long, but just as well. He got crabby when he was hungry, and a crabby Dez was an intimidating Dez. And in intimidating Dez might come in handy when going unarmed into a potential drug den.

  Dez was on the grouchy side already, though Sully suspected it had nothing to do with food nor their upcoming day. He thought it was probably about Forbes, Sully having filled Dez in on last night’s conversation while eating breakfast. Dez and Forbes had hated each other, and while they got along now, the relationship still carried an edge Sully guessed would never be erased.

  Dez surprised him when his complaint, coming while they were doing the breakfast dishes, had nothing to do with Forbes.

  “I hate this place.”

  Sully, elbow deep in suds, puzzled it out for a moment, then glanced around him. “You mean the apartment?”

  “Nothing good happened to me here. I wish you’d consider moving somewhere else.”

  Sully shrugged and returned his attention to the plate he was scrubbing. “I don’t mind it. Anyway, Emily’s across the hall.”

  “She won’t be forever. She’s in her mid-eighties. Eventually, she won’t be wanting to navigate those stairs with her shopping.”

  Sully snorted. Emily Crichton was no shrinking violet. “Don’t say that while she’s in earshot. She’d kick your ass.”

  Dez was silent a moment before sharing in the laugh. “Okay, point made. She probably could and would.”

  Dishes done, the two of them piled into Dez’s SUV in a small parking area behind the Golden Hand pawn shop. Sully lived in Dez’s former apartment above the business, located on one of the main roads running through the Riverview area of Kimotan Rapids.