by Willow Mason
“Can we examine it?” Patrick asked, pulling out his camera.
“Knock yourselves out. Although, I’m not sure what you think you’ll find that the police didn’t.”
Together, Jared and I lifted the dusty tarpaulin off the vehicle, releasing a cloud of particles into the air. Between sneezes, we folded the cover and placed it on the workbench, beside a small fortune in tools. Each one had a place marked out on the board, the individual items hanging from nails.
Ordered. Precise. Not the setup of a man who liked to drive without a belt.
“Who replaced the windshield?” Jared asked, running his hand over the intact glass.
“My dad fixed it up along with the dent from the…” Pru swallowed with effort. “The power pole. He was a panel beater.”
Jared opened the driver’s side door, releasing a waft of stale air. A chemical tang made my nose twitch and a matching wince told me his sensitive nose wasn’t enjoying the odour.
“Can you…?” I shrugged, feeling awkward with Pru standing so close by. “Smell anything?”
He shook his head while Patrick took photographs of the interior, blinding us in flashes. “The seatbelt seems intact,” he commented, sitting in the driver’s seat to get a better view. “Or did your dad fix that too?”
“Just the outside.”
I stepped back as Patrick unleashed the power of the flashbulb on the inside of the car. Jared ran a hand along the paintwork of the front bumper. “He did a nice job.”
Nice but pointless. It must have been hard to go from the anticipation of walking his daughter down the aisle to repairing the vehicle that claimed her fiancé’s life. Not a milestone any father wants to mark.
“You said Andrew was up for a promotion?” I walked outside the garage, needing a breath of fresh air to blow my maudlin thoughts away. “What was his job?”
“Oh, some stupid title. Applied learning specialist or something like that.”
I could hear the air quotes in Pru’s voice, even though her arms stayed tightly folded. “But he was trying for a higher position?”
“Team manager.” A faint smile ran across Pru’s lips, disappearing as she stepped forward in alarm. “Don’t touch that!”
Jared shot her a guilty expression as he replaced a water blaster into its designated area. “Sorry.”
Pru’s anxiety was so palpable I could feel it worming its way into my nerve endings, tightening them until I had to cross my arms, too. We stood, shoulder to shoulder, like sentries guarding treasure.
“There’s medication in the glove box,” Patrick said as he emerged from the vehicle, his appetite for photographs temporarily sated. “Did he take it often?”
Pru took it from his hand, running her thumb lightly over the label. “It’s omeprazole, for stomach acid. He’d be fine for months, then when he got in a tizzy over something, his reflux would act up.” She sighed and handed it back to Patrick. “I thought he had an ulcer a dozen times, but the internal cameras never found anything. Just put it back where you found it.”
“I think it might’ve passed its expiry date.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Not that it matters since nobody’s taking it any longer.”
“Did the promotion at work mean a lot to him, then?”
Pru stared at me as though I’d spoken in a foreign language. Finally, she shook her head. “Of course, it meant a lot. Extra pay was always welcome, and it meant he could get a look-in at the next position he wanted.”
“Must have been stressful.”
Patrick’s comment earned a wry smile. “Yeah. Not as stressful as him driving straight into a pole.”
Jared picked up the tarpaulin, shaking it out. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything more here,” he said, jerking his chin at the opposite corner.
I helped him cover the vehicle again, feeling like I was spreading soil on top of a coffin. If the car belonged to me, I wouldn’t learn to drive either. The oppressive knowledge of what had happened to the last occupant would stick fast.
As if reading my thoughts, Pru rubbed the back of her neck and shivered. “I should’ve sold the stupid thing or given it away. It wasn’t like I needed the money.”
“Didn’t Andrew have life insurance?”
Patrick dropped right out of the favourite’s ranking. “Far more than I’d need to murder him if I felt inclined, since that’s what you’re implying,” Pru snapped. “But I didn’t kill him.”
“We’re not implying anything,” I said sternly, fixing Patrick with a hard stare.
“Investigations are mainly a way to rule things out,” he offered with a suitably chastened grin. “Please don’t take anything to heart.”
“Those tools don’t seem to get a lot of use,” Jared said with a last wistful glance as he pressed the button to lower the door. “Would you mind if I—”
“They’re Andrew’s.” Pru’s voice was sharp with tears. “Nobody else gets to touch them. That’s the way it was when he was alive and it’s the way it is now.”
“I’m sorry,” Patrick said as she walked us stiffly back towards the house, pausing at the back door. “We just seem to be upsetting you. Please understand it’s not our intention.”
“Oh, it’s not you. It’s Andrew’s change. The mess he made of the dining room. It’s—” She broke off, stifling a sob against the back of her hand. “This place. I hate the way it feels, now.”
“You should get away for a few days.” Patrick jerked his chin towards his waiting vehicle. “Come home with us and Desi will put you up in a room for a few nights. Probably safest until we sort out what’s going wrong with your fiancé.”
I thought she would decline. Accepting the offer didn’t seem in keeping with Pru’s personality type at all. But the day was full of surprises.
“That would be fantastic,” she said in a small voice. “If you’re sure.”
“Of course, we’re sure,” Patrick said while I was still coming to terms with the offer. “Grab whatever you need, and we’ll head straight there.”
Pru stared at the closed door and the keys in her hand. “Come on, then,” she said, stuffing them into her pocket. “This place has nothing I need.”
Chapter Nine
Annalisa tilted her head to the side to keep her crown aloft, sticking her long tongue out to worry the chain around her right paw.
“That’s nothing,” Wendy said. “You should see the crown jewels. They have rows and rows of all sorts of shiny stuff, made with the biggest stones you’ve ever seen.”
“Oh, yes. You’re the queen of Briarton,” Wendy exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “Annalisa should give you the crown, but it doesn’t fit.”
“Problem sorted, then.” Wendy took the heavy gold jewellery from the panther and draped it over Paisley, shortening her by an inch under its weight. “There we go. All better.”
The cat who so far had proved immune to my charms appeared to have tumbled head over tail for Wendy’s administrations. Paisley’s loud purr was a fitting rival to Annalisa’s, and I felt a momentary pang that I’d missed out.
Annalisa nuzzled the smaller cat, pulling her into the protective circle of her front paws. She raised her chin.
Pru leapt to his defence. “How rude. Jared has bee
n the biggest help to me today.”
“We’re just having a few guests for a few nights until we can sort out the sudden poltergeist infestation.” I popped into the kitchen and switched the kettle on. Making a hot drink was always my first line of defence. “It won’t kill you to be polite.”
I opened my mouth to object, then remembered the scene proceeding my abrupt decision to return to my hometown. Fair enough. I refused to feel guilty at Jared glanced at me, his face drooping when I didn’t rush to his defence.
“It’d be nice if everyone who can speak aloud would do so,” Patrick grumbled, taking a cold beer out of the fridge. “It’s hard enough to keep up with the conversation when there’s just one of you I can’t hear.”
“They’re not saying anything of importance.” Jared dropped into the comfy chair by the bay window. Right where I’d wanted to sit. “Believe me, if you could hear them you wouldn’t want to.”
“You should count yourself lucky,” I told Patrick. “They’re just slinging insults at each other. It’s like sibling rivalry on steroids.”
“I always wanted a sister,” Wendy said, being extremely selective. “When Sara was born, I was like, ‘Hurry up! You need to grow big and strong so we can have midnight snacks and secret languages.’”
“Neither of which you’d be allowed,” Gareth said. No one—least of all his daughter—paid attention.
“How about my room?” Wendy asked, dancing a few steps to the side. “You can sleep on the beanbag in the moonlight and have my stuffed monkey Baldrick for protection.”
“I’m already taking enough lessons,” I said, attempting to remember everyone’s drink order without using magic. I placed Jared’s standard tea with two sugars in front of him, thankful that familiarity spared me having to use my short-term memory banks for one cup, at least. “How’s your werewolf course going?”
“Fine,” he said in the short tone which meant it wasn’t going fine at all. Perversely, the thought made me feel a little better about my struggles. If we were still in high school, I’d have suggested we both ditch class and make out behind the bike shed.
Annalisa’s appalled face showed me she’d caught that thought full on.
She mimed retching on the floor.
Patrick’s phone rang and he excused himself from the room, ducking into the hallway as though we couldn’t all hear him perfectly well from the extra foot away. Not that his end of the conversation was enlightening. “Mm-hm. A-ha. Right. I understand.”
By the time I served the cups of tea and bowls of milk to the appropriate recipients, Patrick came back into the room wearing a glum expression. “That was Sergeant Grosvenor. I asked him to take a refresher on Andrew’s autopsy results and it wasn’t great. Apart from the injuries he sustained in the accident, there was nothing. No sign of foul play and the standard tox screen came back clear.”
“Well, yes.” Pru seemed aghast. “Andrew would never take drugs. He drew a line at two cups of coffee and he only drank decaf.”
“I didn’t mean…” Patrick faltered to a stop. “Because of the murder aspect, I thought he might’ve been poisoned, that’s all.”
“He still could’ve been.” Gareth coloured when the room turned to him, en masse. “Those reports only look for the obvious suspects. Coke, marijuana, and alcohol for the most part. They’re to eliminate intoxication as a reason for the car crash, not search his system for poison.”
“Could they run a broader panel?” When Gareth shrugged, I turned to Patrick.
“Using what?” He caught Pru’s eye and glanced away hurriedly. “They won’t have another blood sample,” he whispered.
I opened my mouth to ask if the police could get one, then snapped it shut. That was a question with implications I didn’t want crowding my brain.
Annalisa tipped her head to the side until her crown fell to the floor, then sauntered over.
I relayed the question for Patrick’s benefit while Pru mulled over the answer. “All I can think of is silly stuff,” she said after a few minutes. “Like he cut someone off in traffic once and felt terrible about it for ages. Another time he wrote a letter to the editor that he regretted, but it still got published.”
“About what?”
Pru chewed her bottom lip. “It was to do with the traffic lights at the corner of Harmon’s Road. Andrew thought the roundabout was safer and shouldn’t have been replaced.”
“Wow. Heavy stuff.” Gareth tried and failed to disguise his laugh as a cough. “Not the best motive I’ve heard of for murder.”
“People kill each other for fun,” Wendy said, chewing on her knuckle. “My teacher told me all about it.”
Her dad turned bright purple. “Mr Mallory told you what?”
“During the middle ages, they used to do terrible things. He said that law enforcement would pull people apart and set fire to others while they were still alive. They’d sell tickets to the executions and make them gory just to entertain the crowds.”
“Except, we’re all descended from the folks who committed those acts or watched them being done.” Wendy’s eyes widened to the point she could be in anime. “It’s more likely that we’re worse, even if we’re better at keeping it on the inside.”
The thought made my head hurt and, glancing around the room, I saw I wasn’t the only one.
“I think your teacher might have overplayed how common it was,” Gareth said in a calming tone that sounded well practised. “If everyone was being executed in horrible ways, we wouldn’t have anyone left.”
“We might have veered a bit off-topic here.” Patrick disappeared into our office, emerging a moment later with one of his smaller contraptions. “See here? This is for telling how much evil people have in them.” He turned the display towards her. “This needle shows the readings. If anyone in this room was capable of even a fraction of what your teacher described, it would be sitting in the red.”
“Can I try it?”
After a short conversation between their raised eyebrows, Patrick handed it over while Gareth’s back stiffened.
Wendy spun around in a circle—her nose pressed so close to the machine that her breath fogged the glass. “You’re all scoring so low it doesn’t seem there’s a single drop of evil in you.”
I laughed at the disappointment in her voice. “Please remember, that’s a good thing. We’ve got enough folks in the world thinking witches are bad without one of our own believing the same.”
Patrick cleared his throat.
“Or one of our allies,” I amended.
I stroked Annalisa’s head while trying to course-correct enough to follow her conversation. “You mean Andrew’s office?”
&nbs
p; “Or this is some horrible black witchcraft type of thing,” I suggested. “How would we know if someone used an evil spell to kill him off?”
“So it has to be someone human.”
“Or someone who doesn’t leave evidence behind,” Wendy added. “Just because magic usually leaves traces doesn’t mean it always does or that someone can’t learn how to disguise them.”
A lovely thought. The future looked to be in safe and sceptical hands.
“Good luck with tracking down his work colleagues.” Patrick had his phone out, scrolling with such fixed intensity, I assumed it must be related to the investigation. “It’s not the seventies anymore so staying at one firm for fifteen years is a stretch.”
“Did you stay in touch with any of them?” I asked Pru.
“No. Andrew was a stickler for keeping his work and home life separate, so he neglected to invite me along when they issued invites for family.” My face must have registered shock because she laughed. “I preferred it that way, too. It saved me having to think of an excuse not to attend.”
“Piermont Training and Human Resource Services, is that right?” Patrick turned his screen to face Pru, smiling when she nodded. “Do you recognise any of the names listed?”
She took the cell phone out of his hand and examined it through squinting eyes. “Solomon Armstrong definitely worked there at the same time,” she said at last, handing it back. “The others don’t sound familiar.” She shrugged. “Not that it means they weren’t there. His boss at the time was Raymond Burns but I don’t see him listed.”
Patrick clicked a few buttons and gave a smile. “We’ve got an appointment, bright and early tomorrow morning. Now, how about we forget all about the case for a while and veg out in front of the TV?”
A fine plan.
Later, once everyone had settled in their rooms, being good sports about the dust and stuffiness trapped in each one, I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling. Jared padded by the doorway, popping his head in to say goodnight and seeming relieved I was alone. I don’t know what he was expecting, but having lived with him for five years he should have known full well I wasn’t that type of girl.
