Resting Witch Face

by Constance Barker

  Studying posters of Black Metal bands, Quinn continued wandering. “Lamb of God, Mastodon. Music sure has changed since I was a kid. I remember listening to a lot of 3 Doors Down and Taylor Swift. I guess I wasn’t all that—”

  Quinn froze as she saw the upturned can behind the drums.

  “You see a rat or something?” Steve stood up. Unslinging the bass and leaning it against the wall, he walked over to her. She hardly noticed. Even upside down and stained, she could read the contents of the twenty-gallon can: Parathion.

  Chapter 6

  “Don’t you own anything that isn’t Fredonia Blue sweats?” Harvest folded her umpteenth pair of sweat pants and stuffed them in a duffle bag.

  Echo rolled more socks. “It’s just easier. Einstein always wore the same thing so he didn’t have to think about it.”

  “Einstein, huh? A pretty good role model. I’m not so sure about his fashion sense.” Harvest turned her attention to the movie on TV: Hocus Pocus. She smirked. “Is this what witches are supposed to do?”

  “And what’s up with that cat?” Echo chimed in. “Why don’t we have a talking cat? That would be cool. Why don’t we have any pets?”

  Another pair of sweat pants. “Never thought about it. I was never interested in having a dog or cat. I’m surprised you don’t have a lizard or a turtle or something weird.”

  Echo folded panties. “Why would I want a lizard or a turtle? They don’t do anything.”

  “Your obsession with dinosaurs.”

  “Ah.” Echo emptied her laundry basket. “A pet dinosaur—now you’re talking. I can’t wait to take Paleontology but I have to get through two geology pre-reqs.”

  Harvest squinted at her little sister. “You aren’t majoring in geology, are you?”

  Before Echo could answer, Harvest’s phone rang. Seeing it was Quinn, she put it on speaker. “S’up, Sis?”

  Quinn’s voice was almost too low to hear. “I just found a container of parathion.”

  The poison that killed the sheriff. “What? Where?”

  “One of my cases, Steve Bender. He lives in a camper outside a barn. The can’s in the barn.”

  “Steve Bender? I know him,” Echo edged closer.

  “I don’t know if it’s unusual for a can of insecticide to be in a barn. Maybe they grow one of the crops you can use it on.” Harvest tried to remember what the coroner and Nora Albright had said about the poison. One thing popped into her head, and that was the team in hazmat suits. “You should stay away from it, Quinn. Clear the barn. I’ll call Nora. Stand by.”

  When Harvest disconnected and scrolled for Albright’s number, Echo got up and put on her hoodie. “Where are you going?”

  “Steve is a really cool guy. No way is he poisoning people. I’m going to talk to his girlfriend.”

  “Oh. Good. I thought you were heading to the barn.” Harvest found the number.

  “Why are you calling some coroner assistant? Why not call your friend on the state police?” Echo fished for her keys.

  That was a good question. It gave Harvest pause. “Nora knows more about the poison than Shafer, or even Dr. Stanislas. For now, I want to make sure Quinn and this Steve kid are safe.”

  “Good call. Is this movie on demand? I want to see the rest. Maybe get some pointers.”

  “It’s a witch movie marathon. Hocus Pocus, The Craft, Practical Magic, Witches of Eastwick.”

  Echo headed out. “I’ll get some popcorn at Last Shop.”

  Thirty minutes later, Harvest parked amid half a dozen vehicles on the path between a tumbledown red barn and a shiny new camper. Albright leaned against her yellow station wagon talking to Quinn and a teenager with weird hair. The hazmat team deployed to the barn.

  “I’m telling you, it was just sitting in the corner. Our drummer’s a little guy. He could never get the drum throne low enough. The can was just right. Plus it looks cool,” the teenager shrugged at Nora.

  A state police cruiser parked on the road, apparently awaiting instructions. Harvest strode to Quinn. “You okay? You’re not sick or anything?”

  “I’m fine. The one I’m really worried about is Steve’s drummer. He would probably be the most exposed.”

  “The dude’s fine. It’s just an old can,” Steve protested.

  Nora Albright faced the barn. “I better get in there.”

  Still wondering why she would call Albright before Sgt. Shafer, Harvest asked, “Why do you roll with the hazmat team, Nora?”

  She put on her hood. “There’s only a few firefighters trained to deal with hazmat. As for me, there aren’t that many deaths to keep me busy. The team might need medical evaluation. What can I say? We’re understaffed, we have to multitask.”

  “I don’t know why this is such a big deal.” Steve glared at Quinn.

  Harvest folded her arms. “You do know the sheriff died from exposure to insecticide, right?”

  She received a blank look in return.

  Lights and sirens blaring, two state police cars arrived on the road, parking at angles to close it off. Sgt. Jeff Shafer levered himself out of one, putting a campaign hat over his blond-and-silver crew cut. Approaching, he let out a sigh.

  “Why are you here, Constable?”

  “My sister found the can. I called Nora Albright.”

  “Not the police?”

  Again, doubt kicked around in her head. “I was more concerned about exposure than anything else.” It sounded lame when she said it.

  “Uh huh.” Shafer took in Steve. “This your place?”

  “I live here with my brother,” Steve said.

  Shafer nodded to another officer. “Let’s take Steve down to the Warren Station to get a statement.”

  “Seriously? It’s just a freakin can!”

  One of the troopers escorted Steve to a car. Shafer’s attention returned to Harvest. “Okay, you and your sister, out of here. With Bennett found in your parking lot, you’re already tangled up enough in this.”

  “Hey, no need to be rude,” Quinn stood up taller. “I reported the stupid can. I’m trying to help out.”

  “See something, say something. I get it. Thank you for being a stand-up citizen. Now go away.” Shafer headed toward the barn when one of the troopers shouted. They saw Steve break free and race down the road.

  “Son of a...” Shafer turned back.

  “He runs track,” Quinn offered.

  “Malloy! Cut him off with the car.” The state police sergeant ran for the road.

  Harvest shook her head, staring after him. “I think that’s our cue.”

  Nodding, Quinn headed to her car.

  PRIEST HOLLOW FARM sat out in the middle of nowhere. Echo recalled a slumber party out here, maybe for Katie Barnes’ twelfth birthday. Not the most social of butterflies, it stuck out in Echo’s head. It had been fun. Nobody drew on a sleeping girl’s face, or put their training bras in the freezer. There was a lot of screeching, whispers about boys, junk food and movies but hardly any slumbering.

  The farm was a medium sized dairy concern, cows lingering in a fenced off field surrounded by woods. She drove past a couple barns and a milking house before reaching the driveway to the home.

  Katie answered the door. “Hey, Echo! I haven’t seen you since summer. SUNY Fredonia, huh? I figured an egg-head like you would be at Harvard or something.”

  “I’m an egg-head?”

  “Oh, c’mon, four-point-oh GPA, science fair winner, you’re a total Brainiac.” Katie stepped aside to let her in. “So, what classes are you taking? Some kind of dinosaur thing?”

  Funny, Echo always thought of herself as the arty type. “Not yet. Just general ed. I’m not sure what to major in.”

  The Barnes’ farmhouse was much larger than the Grams’. Katie led the way to a kitchen with an island. She pulled out a stool. “You want coffee or something?”

  Since going collegiate, Echo found herself addicted to the stuff. “Yes, please. So what are you doing now? Are you in college?”
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  “Community college. I’m taking some business courses and working part-time at the PDF.”

  “I thought the PDF was only open in the summer.” Echo accepted a steaming mug.

  Katie laughed. “That’s what I used to think. But the Pennsylvania Dairy Farmers’ Co-Op negotiates between a bunch of local dairies and the big corporate milk buyers. The ice cream shop is just a side thing. Everything’s been a total disaster since Deb Arnold up and ran away. Not that I miss her. That woman was one creepy bitch.”

  Echo stared into her mug. Deb Arnold was another member of the Jade Coven. She preferred not to think about what they had planned for her and her sisters. “Well, that’s cool, taking on the family business. I wanted to do that with the Chandlery, but I got bribed into going to college instead.”

  “I just love the smell of your place. All those candle scents when you walk in the door. Oh, man, I forgot—that whole sheriff thing. What’s up with that?”

  Echo shrugged. “All I know is they found him in the parking lot. He was poisoned.”

  “Gotta be bad for business.”

  “Terrible,” Echo admitted.

  “So what’s up, girl? You said you needed to talk to me about something.”

  “Someone, actually.” Echo sipped her coffee. “Are you still going out with Steve Bender?”

  “Oh, no.” Katie’s mouth puckered with the words, and stayed that way as she shook her head.

  “I thought you two were hot and heavy.”

  “C’mon, the guy’s still in high school. I never should’ve dated someone a grade below me. But he was so cool, the sensitive musician type, and he has a great butt.”

  “What happened?”

  Katie gazed out the window. “I don’t know. He just turned really dark. I mean, I get why he ran away from home. Fighting with his step-dad, not just words, but punching it out. It made Steve hotter, in a way. A rebel. But...”

  Echo waited. The coffee was good, and it had French Vanilla creamer in it. Her favorite. After a while, Katie found words.

  “There was way too much talk about vengeance. About really hurting his mom’s new husband. He wrote songs about it, murder and stuff. Even his new band, mostly older guys, just had that vibe. Dangerous. That’s way too much negativity for me. I’m like you. I’m a farm girl, I love nature, and camping and swimming in the river. I’m not into Satanism and violence. Heck, I don’t even watch scary movies. I just couldn’t hang.”

  “Wow.” Echo pursed her lips. “I remember him drawing pastel portraits in art class and his band playing the talent show. He was so mellow, so cool. Easy on the eyes, you know. I was even a little jealous of you. I guess all the stuff he went through changed him.”

  Katie smiled sadly. “It did. It really did. But you were jealous of me? I was totally jelly of you, girl.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “All the guys hanging around you, and you never gave anyone the time of day. You were just so aloof. It made the boys crazy.”

  “It did?” Echo had been on maybe three dates in high school. Living in the middle of nowhere made social life difficult without a car. When she was in school, Echo wouldn’t be caught dead in the Bee-Mobile, the fifties-era delivery van the Grams used in their bee-keeping. Up until her senior year, she had Gramma Em drop her off a few blocks from the school. “Did any of them have a car?”

  Katie laughed. “I know, right? Going on a date with some guy’s mom driving, or worse, getting picked up in a farm truck that smelled like manure. Good times.”

  Echo toasted with her coffee mug. “Good times.”

  Chapter 7

  “Why did he run if he’s innocent?” Quinn sat in the Gram’s living room, ignoring the witch movie marathon.

  “I don’t know, a team in white bunny suits, police cars with lights and sirens. He’s a musician. Maybe he had weed stashed.” Harvest dug into her bowl of popcorn, eyes on the screen.

  “That’s still illegal here, huh?” Quinn found she couldn’t get over the sight of two state troopers tackling the boy and dragging him to a car in cuffs. Steve Bender had been through a lot in his young life. This was all her fault. “I didn’t go there to investigate a murder. I just wanted to get a read on my client. I wanted to know why the school thinks he’s dangerous.”

  Echo munched popcorn. “Katie says that the whole situation turned Steve dark. He was talking about hurting his step-dad. Maybe murdering him.”

  “But Steve’s step-dad isn’t the sheriff.”

  Harvest rolled her eyes and paused the movie. “There was poison in the barn, Quinn. The same stuff that killed Bennett.”

  “We don’t know that. Maybe that can was in there for years. There’s a lot of junk in that barn.”

  “You’re talking in circles. Obviously, you want to do something about it,” Harvest said.

  Her briefcase purse sat next to Quinn on the couch. She pulled out the purple, faux leather recipe book. When she flipped it upside down and backwards, the flimsy book grew fatter, the cover hard. By itself, it fell open to a page.

  “I thought you were done with spell casting.” Echo set the popcorn aside and moved closer.

  Quinn’s mouth formed a straight line. She read the spell over. “I tried this before, but it didn’t work.”

  “The spells seem to work better when we say them together.” Echo eagerly looked over her sister’s shoulder.

  But Quinn recited the spell herself.

  “The light of truth as bright as day

  Reveal the fact that none may sway

  Illuminate beyond inveigh

  Exonerate without hearsay

  Exculpate, justice purvey

  Absolve from guilt without delay.”

  Echo shuffled back to her chair in disappointment and picked up the popcorn bowl. “What if he’s guilty?”

  “Then it probably won’t work. The last time I tried this, before I moved back here, before we took The Vow, I tried to get a mother and her children back together. Her ex had a key to her apartment, and he was dealing drugs while she was at work and the kids at—”

  Harvest’s cell phone rang, halting Quinn’s words. Harvest looked from the screen to Quinn. “Sgt. Shafer.”

  “THERE’S A REASON I tell you to stay out of police business, Hutchinson,” Shafer said by way of greeting. “I don’t want you anywhere near this case. You aren’t a cop. You’re a constable.”

  Harvest felt her face warming. Maybe she shouldn’t have taken his call on speaker. “For Pete’s sake, Jeff, at least we found something. Bennett was poisoned by parathion. There was a big-ass can of parathion in that barn. How much progress have you made on this case? C’mon, we’re sinking here. We haven’t had a customer since the man died. The fourth quarter is when the Chandlery makes a profit for the year. We need this solved.”

  When she caught Echo’s stricken features, Harvest thought she’d said too much.

  “Your progress is a can full of sand. No trace of poison. That kid’s got a bulldog for a lawyer, you know that? He’s the one who decided to run, but his mouthpiece is slapping a bad faith lawsuit on the state cops. False prosecution, brutality, unlawful search and seizure, the whole nine yards.”

  Now it was Quinn’s face sagging and going pale.

  “How does this violate his Fourth Amendment rights? He let Quinn in, and she saw possible evidence in a homicide.”

  Shafer’s voice rose, vibrating the phone speaker to distortion. “Stop with the law-talk. Stop with the homicide talk. We don’t know that this wasn’t an accident. We’re still investigating. Yes, the police are investigating. You’re not. And if you do, I’ll have you arrested for interfering, you got that?”

  “We weren’t—”

  “Tell me you got that.”

  Harvest dropped her head back, staring at the ceiling. “I got that.”

  “Awesome.” Sarcasm issued from the speaker like a miasma. “Then let me give you a heads-up. You should expect some blowback personally. The attorn
ey, Higgins, he specializes in wayward kids who are getting screwed. I expect you’ll hear from him soon. In the meanwhile...”

  “Stay out of police business,” Harvest finished for him.

  Shafer disconnected without another word.

  “I solve a thirty-year-old serial killer case for him, and this is what I get,” she muttered.

  The front door opened, Gramma Em and Aunt Mary walking in. “Oo, it’s getting cold out,” Gramma shivered.

  “Movie night? Count me in, kids.” Aunt Mary shrugged out of her coat and hung it on the rack near the door.

  “Is it true that you’re going broke?” Echo asked.

  The Grams shot hard looks at Harvest and Quinn.

  “This will blow over, honey,” Gramma said. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

  “Blow over, hell.” Aunt Mary took the popcorn bowl from Echo and sat on the couch next to Quinn. “The Fall Sale’s a bust. We’ve got insurance and taxes due. Admit it, Sis, we’re flat busted. Let’s watch some cable while we can still afford it.”

  “Mary,” Gramma warned through her teeth.

  “They aren’t girls anymore, Em.” Mary dug into the popcorn and stuffed it into her mouth.

  Gramma stepped into the living room and turned up the heat. “Okay, we’re in a little trouble. Usually, in October, we move into the black. The regular customers always come for the Fall Sale. By the end of the month, we’re usually breaking even for the year, and by the beginning of December, we’re flush. But nobody’s come in since you found the sheriff. Not even the mailman.”

  “He’s leaving the shop mail in the mailbox for the house, that jerk,” Mary said.

  Echo shrugged. “It’s been less than a week.”

  “Our biggest week of the year,” Gramma said, “And nada.”

  “Well, maybe you’ll finally let me pay some rent,” Quinn said.

  “No.” The Grams said together.

  “Quinn, you haven’t even unpacked your boxes yet. We know you don’t want to live here permanently,” Gramma said. “We’d love it if you did.”