Maggie Lee (Book 23): The Hitwoman and the Exorcism

by Lynn, JB

  RV stared at the bundle in my arms.

  “We caught him,” I explained.

  “The possessed dog?”

  I nodded.

  She looked at me doubtfully as I struggled to maintain my hold on Zippy, who was once again doing everything in his power to escape from my grip.

  “Now what are you going to do with him?” RV asked.

  “We’re taking him back to the barn, my grandfather says he has a cage we can dump him in.”

  “I will not be caged,” Zippy yelled.

  “Oh shut up,” God muttered, climbing from the top of my head back down to my shoulder.

  “That’s good,” RV Said. “I think we’re going to need him. Also, I wanted to tell you I had a line on a witch.”

  Together, we began to walk back to the barn.

  DeeDee led the way, and Piss walked alongside me. Matilda brought up the rear.

  “Great,” I said. “Is she a good witch or a bad witch?”

  RV shook her head but didn’t answer me. I didn’t know if that meant all witches were bad or what, but she didn’t seem happy with the question.

  “So, where do we find this witch?” I asked.

  “In a cemetery,” she said quietly.

  I shuddered. I seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time in cemeteries, and they always freak me out. Usually, it’s because I think somebody is going to kill me in one of them.

  “I was on my way down to find you when I heard the screaming,” RV said.

  “The dog bit me and my grandfather,” I explained. “Then ran off into the woods.”

  “Caught we,” DeeDee supplied.

  “We can always count on you to state the obvious,” God drawled dryly.

  “Seriously?” I said with exasperation. “Can you NOT pick on your friends.”

  RV glanced at me, a strange expression on her face.

  When we got to the barn, Herschel and Griswald were standing there, a rusty old crate propped up between them.

  Irma, the donkey, was pacing back and forth along the length of her enclosure. “I don’t want to be stuck with him,” the donkey brayed. “Tell him, Maggie. Tell him he can’t leave the dog here with me.”

  I couldn’t tell my grandfather that, not with Griswald standing there.

  The two men eyed me and the wriggling, panting lump that I held against my chest as I approached.

  “You got him?” Griswald asked.

  I nodded.

  “You didn’t hurt him, did you?” Herschel asked with concern.

  Before I could answer, Zippy cried, “My leg, oh my leg.”

  “He’s hurt,” Herschel cried, stepping toward me.

  I refused to let go of the bundle. “He’s just trying to fool you,” I told him. “We were careful.”

  “Kill no,” DeeDee added helpfully.

  “Again, with the obvious,” God moaned.

  I walked over to the crate and considered how to get the little dog into it.

  “The top lifts off,” Griswald supplied, seeing my confusion.

  “Thank goodness,” I said.

  “Though I really think this is only a temporary solution,” Griswald said. “We should probably call animal control.”

  Considering that the only animal control officer I knew was currently with Armani, judging exotic dancers, I wasn’t sure that was the best plan.

  “This is a family matter,” Herschel said. “No outsiders.”

  Griswald blinked, a little surprised by my grandfather’s reaction. He gave me an inquiring look, and I shrugged. “Zippy’s his family.”

  “But he bit both of you,” Griswald complained. “What if he’d bitten Katie?”

  “Bite Katie No!” DeeDee barked excitedly.

  “Calm down,” I told her. “Everything’s fine.”

  Griswald and Herschel lifted the lid of the rusty crate.

  I bent over, trying to figure out how to extricate the dog from the blanket.

  “Just dump the whole thing all in,” RV urged.

  Griswald looked at her with curiosity.

  I thought her plan was probably wise so I said, “On the count of three, I’m letting go.”

  “You should probably be ready to close it up,” RV suggested mildly.

  “One. Two.” As I dropped the blanket into the crate, I shrieked, “Three.”

  Griswald and Herschel were able to get the lid back on the crate before Zippy even got himself untangled from the blanket.

  “Kill!” he growled, staring at me.

  “Next time,” I told him.

  “Now what?” Herschel asked.

  RV tapped her wrist, letting me know we were under a time limit.

  “I’ve got to go run an errand,” I told them. “Why don’t we just leave Zippy here for a while and see if he calms down?”

  “You’re not leaving him here with me,” Irma brayed with outrage. “You can’t trap me in here with him. It’s like going to prison with a serial killer.”

  “Fine,” Herschel muttered.

  “Fine what?” Griswald asked, confused because he couldn’t understand the braying donkey.

  “We’ll take him inside.” Herschel picked up the crate and began to walk away, with the dog sliding around inside of it.

  “Nowhere near Katie,” I warned.

  “Of course not,” Herschel yelled over his shoulder.

  Griswald frowned, shook his head, and walked back toward the main house.

  I looked at the animals gathered around me. “I’ve got to go with RV,” I told them.

  “Katie guard will I,” DeeDee announced.

  “I think that’s a good idea,” I said to her.

  “I’ll help,” Matilda said.

  “What are you going to do, porky pie?” God mocked.

  “Hey,” I told him. “She was instrumental in catching Zippy.”

  The pig raised her snout with pride.

  “And get Herschel to feed you,” I suggested to them both.

  Together, the dog and the pig headed back toward the house. Piss stayed by my side. “You want me to go with you, sugar?”

  Even though it was stereotypical, the whole witches and cat thing, I really did.

  I nodded. I looked at RV, noticing the lines of concern etching her forehead. “Now what?”

  “Now, we go find ourselves a witch.”

  15

  “Do you want to take your car or Princess?” RV asked.

  I blinked at her. “Princess?”

  “That’s the name of the camper,” RV said flatly.

  I chuckled at the name. “You don’t seem like the type that would name your vehicle.” I waited for a moment to see if she was going to elaborate, but she said nothing more. “We can take my car,” I told her.

  She nodded. “That’s probably easier. The roads inside cemeteries tend to be really narrow.”

  Considering that the first time I’d met her was because she had been having such difficulty parking the pink princess, I understood her concerns.

  “Let’s go,” I said, “before somebody else comes out looking for me.”

  We hopped in my car and I gunned the engine, leaving tire marks on the asphalt in my hurry to get out of there undetected.

  We’d almost made it, too, when RV suddenly yelled, “Stop!”

  I slammed on the brakes, and she, not wearing her seatbelt, flew forward, banging her head against the windshield with a sickening thud.

  I winced. “Sorry.”

  “My fault,” she muttered.

  “Are you okay?” I asked worriedly.

  Nodding, she rubbed her head and stumbled out of the car.

  “We’re not at the cemetery yet,” I told her, wondering how much damage the thunk on the head had done her.

  Ignoring me, she stumbled toward the pink RV and began to yell, “What are you doing?”

  It took me a minute to realize she wasn’t yelling for no reason. She was yelling because Jack Stern had been caught red-handed (or maybe pink-ha
nded?) trying to get a look inside the camper. The crime reporter stepped toward RV, hands raised, signaling his surrender.

  I got out of my car, hoping to diffuse the situation.

  “This is Jack,” I explained to RV. “He’s Armani’s boyfriend.”

  “Why were you looking in my place?” RV asked.

  Jack lowered his hands slowly, tilted his head to the side, and gave her a long considering look. He didn’t reply.

  “Jack,” I prodded. “She has a legitimate question.”

  “I was trying to confirm the owner,” Jack said slowly.

  “I told you earlier that it wasn’t a squatter,” I said. “RV is a friend of ours.”

  Jack narrowed his gaze and shook his head. “You need to find better people to be friends with, Maggie.”

  I didn’t point out to him that Armani was actually better friends with her than I am.

  “I guess she didn’t tell you who she is?” he said.

  I looked from him, who was looking like the cat had swallowed the canary in terms of smugness, to RV, who blinked, looking momentarily horrified before she schooled her face into an unreadable expression.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said quietly, “but RV and I are on our way to run an important errand.”

  “You can’t let her stay here,” Jack said.

  I frowned at him. It wasn’t like him to be so bossy, but he was really getting on my last nerve. “She’s been invited to stay, and she’s staying,” I told him. “It’s really none of your business, Jack.”

  He frowned and shook his head. “I’m worried about you.”

  “Why?”

  He glanced over at RV and took a step closer to me. He bent down and whispered in my ear, “Because she could be a murderer.”

  Startled, I took a step back and looked from him to RV.

  I couldn’t tell anything from her expression, but I could tell from his that he believed he was telling the truth.

  Now, I’m not one to talk, considering I’ve murdered a number of people, but the idea of a murderer staying on Herschel’s property was a bit disconcerting.

  “This doesn’t belong to her,” Jack said, waving his arm to encompass the RV. “It belongs to Mildred Bloodworth.”

  “It did,” RV replied. “But it belongs to me now. I inherited it.”

  “See?” I said to Jack with a sigh of relief. “There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.”

  “Ask her who Bloodworth is,” Jack said.

  I turned to RV, looking for an explanation. I could tell from the set of her jaw that she really didn’t want to give me one, but finally she said, “My former mother-in-law.”

  “And what happened to her?” Jack asked.

  RV’s expression was strained, but I couldn’t tell what it was she was thinking or feeling.

  “She died,” she said flatly.

  I believed her, and I didn’t understand why Jack was being so strange about it all.

  Jack took a step toward RV and seemed to loom over her. “She died of a heart attack after finding out you had killed her son,” he said accusingly.

  I looked to RV, expecting her to deny the accusation.

  Instead, she shrugged and said, “That’s what I was accused of.”

  She didn’t proclaim her innocence, she offered no defense, she just said that’s what she had been accused of.

  “There’s no statute of limitation on murder,” Jack told her.

  She tilted her head to the side and fixed him with a strange look. “And you think you’re going to be the one to prove that?”

  Jack shrugged. “It’s my job to report on the story. Follow the facts where they take me.”

  RV let out a bitter chuckle. “Trust me, this is one story you don’t want to follow.”

  I looked at the two of them, glaring at each other like old-time gunfighters in a duel to the death, and knew this wasn’t going to turn out well.

  16

  RV looked at me pointedly and said, “We’re on the clock, if you still want to do that thing…”

  Gulping, I nodded and headed back toward my car, as did RV.

  “It’s a problem, Maggie,” Jack called out.

  Ignoring him, I got into my car. RV followed suit. We pulled away, leaving Jack standing outside the pink princess. I glanced nervously over at RV as I drove. Part of me really wanted the details of the person she was accused of murdering, but having done the deed myself, I knew it wasn’t something that most people liked to talk about.

  “We need to go to the one off Fifth Street,” RV said quietly. “Do you know where that is?”

  I nodded. Unfortunately, I was intimately familiar with that particular cemetery. My sister was buried there.

  The thought of Theresa made me think of Katie, and I wondered if she’d had a good day. I was already falling down on the job of taking care of her. I’d left it to other people all day long, and now I was going with an accused murderer to go traipsing through a cemetery in search of a witch.

  The guilt was overwhelming, and I found myself squeezing the steering wheel nervously.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” RV said.

  I glanced at her in surprise. “I didn’t think you were.”

  “Uh huh,” she muttered, clearly not believing me.

  “My sister’s buried in that cemetery,” I told her quietly. “I was thinking about her and my niece Katie.”

  “Oh,” RV said awkwardly. “I’m sorry.”

  Not wanting to talk about the subject, I said instead, “Tell me about this witch.”

  “I really don’t know much about her,” she said. “All I know is that she goes there at sundown most nights.”

  “Why?” I asked, imagining her digging up freshly laid bodies.

  “Don’t know that, either,” RV admitted. After a pause, she said, “When we get back, I’ll move the camper.”

  I glanced over at her and shook my head. “You don’t have to.”

  “Nobody wants an accused murderer staying on their property,” RV said bitterly.

  “That’s not Jack’s call,” I said. “Look, I know he’s a pain, and he can be a bit obsessive, but he’s really a pretty good guy.”

  RV shook her head and looked out the window, refusing to respond.

  “You can stay,” I told her. “We said you could and nothing’s changed. Besides, you’re helping us with Zippy.”

  “No, I’m not,” she said. “I’m trying to, but there’s no guarantee any of this will work out.”

  “Well, you’re our best shot at it,” I replied, turning on my blinker as we approached the entrance of the cemetery.

  “Not me,” RV murmured.

  We drove past the wrought-iron gates and onto the narrow winding road that meandered through the gravestones.

  “Where to?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “We might as well park here and start looking around.”

  We got out of the car and I made sure it was locked before we walked away. Not that I thought it would keep any spirits out, but it might keep a witch out. What did I know?

  The sun was setting, and it was getting dark, the shadows were lengthening.

  “This place is creepy during the day,” I muttered under my breath. “Now it’s downright—”

  “Here,” RV said, extending her hand to me. Looking down, I saw that she was offering me a flashlight.

  “You came prepared,” I said.

  “Now that’s a lesson you could take to heart,” God lectured from his hiding spot in my bra. “You’re always going places unprepared.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I muttered. Now was not the time for one of his lectures.

  “Maybe we should split up to find her,” RV suggested.

  I frowned. I wasn’t happy to be in the cemetery as it was. I didn’t know what would happen if I encountered a witch on my own.

  RV apparently had no such qualms. “You go this way, I’ll go that.�
� She turned to walk away in the opposite direction from me, then stopped. “Hold on.”

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out one of those portable taser/shocker things and held it out to me. “Take it.”

  I was doubly impressed by her preparation. Not only had she brought a light source, but she’d come with a weapon, and considering she was handing it over to me, I had the distinct impression it was her spare weapon.

  “Will this work on a witch?”

  “I keep telling you, I don’t know this stuff,” she said. Seemingly annoyed, she stalked off in the direction she was supposed to search in.

  Gripping the flashlight tightly in one hand, and the taser in the other, I slowly began to follow Piss down my path.

  “Do you trust her?” God asked.

  “She did just arm me,” I said.

  “Maybe she lured you here so you could have a fight to the death,” God suggested.

  “Really?” Piss mocked, looking over her shoulder at us.

  “You never know,” the lizard countered.

  I shook my head, remembering the painful lesson that Gino had taught me that I’m too naïve. “I don’t think so. I genuinely think she’s trying to help us.”

  “Why?” God asked. “Have you asked yourself that. I mean, she has no reason to help you. Why is she doing it?”

  “Out of the goodness of her heart?” I suggested, beginning to walk again down my path.

  “You heard Jack, she’s a murder suspect,” God said. “How much goodness could she have in her heart?”

  “Well, people could say the same about me,” I said.

  “Well, you’ve never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it,” God said as though that excused all of my violent tendencies.

  I shook my head. “We don’t know whether she killed anyone,” I reminded him. “Innocent until proven guilty, right?”

  “Maybe,” God said doubtfully.

  I was just about to ask him what he thought I should do about her, when we heard the scream.

  Birds who were gathered in the trees overhead scattered, and I crouched low, my heart suddenly racing.

  “Do you think that was her?” I asked.

  “Her the witch? Or her RV?” Piss asked.

  We heard another scream, and goosebumps raised across my shoulders. Whoever it was, was afraid. I couldn’t just leave them on their own.