Vervain and a Victim

by Ruby Loren

  Fortunately, I was saved from answering by the arrival of the police.

  Or rather, Detective Sean Admiral.

  Judging by the sweat on his brow and the amazingly swift arrival time, he’d run here. Annoyingly, he didn’t seem to be out of breath.

  “Impressive,” Jesse said, glancing down at an imaginary watch on his wrist. “I would give you eight out of ten for response time, if this were a test.”

  The detective looked ready to commit murder himself. “If this is your idea of a joke…” he started to say, but then he saw the body.

  2

  Detectives and Drama

  He walked over and took a long and silent look at all that was laid out before him. Then he returned his attention to us. “This is Bridgette Spellsworth. I questioned her in the Zack Baden murder case.”

  “Your observation skills are second to none, Detective.” Jesse remained on his rock, still looking up at the now-darkening sky.

  “Do either of you know who did this to her?” It was clear in the detective’s tone of voice that he thought one, or both of us, had killed the fortuneteller.

  “I was out for a walk. When I came up the side of this hill, I saw Jesse standing over the body.” I shot my fellow suspect a smug smile.

  “I bet no one trusted you with their secrets at school,” he muttered, before finally pushing himself up into a more formal seated position. “I arrived on the scene a few moment’s before Hazel. It was clear to me that Ms Spellsworth had been dead for a while when I arrived. Someone’s removed all of her blood, too.”

  Detective Admiral looked a little unnerved by that revelation.

  He looked down at the body for another few seconds before raising his grey gaze. I saw steely resolution in his eyes that told me we were in for a lot of trouble. “I’m bringing both of you in for questioning. You will accompany me down to the station.”

  “I’ve got plans!” Jesse protested. “Am I actually under arrest?”

  “You will be if you don’t do as I say, Mr Heathen” the detective said. I could see a red glow starting to climb its way up his neck. Detective Sean Admiral was a dangerously calm sort of man. It was the kind of calm that you sensed would explode into a rage so fearsome that you would never forget it, if you pushed him too far.

  Jesse seemed determined to find out the definition of ‘too far’. “It’s ‘Detective Heathen’,” he informed the other man.

  “We’ll come down to the station. It’s no trouble at all,” I trilled, wishing that ‘Detective’ Heathen would put a sock in it… or Bridgette Spellsworth might not be the only murder victim tonight.

  Detective Admiral gave me a steady, unimpressed look that indicated my sucking up had been noted, and wasn’t appreciated. To my left, Jesse appeared to be on the verge of laughter.

  Fortunately, it was at that point that the rest of the small local police force arrived, and the detective barked out his orders to secure the scene and begin the investigation. Once that was done, he indicated that we should lead the way back down the hill.

  “Great job. You didn’t make either of us look in any way suspicious,” Jesse loudly commented right before we reached the police car.

  “Don’t make me kick you,” I muttered in return.

  “Threatening violence! Detective, she’s threatening violence!” Jesse grinned like this was all some big, marvellous joke to him.

  “Both of you shut up and get in the car!” Detective Admiral roared, his face flashing red with rage and spittle shooting out of his mouth.

  For the briefest of moments, Jesse looked impressed. The detective spun on his heel and got into the front of the vehicle.

  Jesse opened the door for me with a flourish. When we made eye contact, I saw the success written in his gaze. That’s what it takes to push him over the edge.

  I had a feeling it was going to be a long and painful interrogation.

  “Thank you for separating us, Detective Admiral. I don’t support the unreasonable behaviour you had to witness earlier this evening,” I said when the detective finally entered the interview room I’d been waiting in for the past twenty minutes.

  “You will answer the questions that I ask you as truthfully and as succinctly as you are able.” He sat down on the plastic chair behind the desk and fixed me with an unwavering eye contact, that seemed to dare me to defy him. “This session is being recorded and may be used as evidence in a court of law.”

  I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms. I’d been nothing but civil to the detective, and this was how he was repaying me? I’d even helped him out on the last case he’d worked on, but apparently he was still letting one little incident of lawbreaking get in the way of what could have been a beautiful friendship between us. Once upon a time, I’d even hoped it would be more than a friendship. “Go right ahead,” I said, determined to be as cold as the man sitting opposite me.

  “What were you doing when you discovered the body of Bridgette Spellsworth?”

  “Walking in the forest,” I replied, keeping it short, just as the detective had asked.

  He looked even more unimpressed than before. I couldn’t win.

  “Why?”

  “Sorry?” I said.

  “Why were you walking in the forest?” The colour was rising up his neck again.

  “For a walk! It’s what people do to stay fit and healthy. I guess you just go to the gym,” I said, thinking about the way he’d come running up the hill and those broad shoulders of his…

  Uh-oh. I’d missed the next question.

  I tried to look thoughtful and hoped the question was something that could potentially be misunderstood or need further elaboration.

  “I asked you to confirm your name for the recording,” the detective told me.

  Things went downhill from there.

  Every time I explained that I had just been an innocent passerby and knew nothing about the circumstances that had led to Bridgette’s death, the detective found a way to ask a different question that showed me he didn’t accept the truth of what I was saying. I knew it was a snitch thing to do, but I didn’t shy away from hinting heavily that Jesse was the one he should be talking to. He’d been at the scene of the crime when I’d found him, actually standing over the body. And what were the chances of that being purely innocent?

  “He said the same thing about you,” the detective finally said, looking like he might be about to pull his hair out by the roots.

  “He said I was standing over the body? He’s lying.”

  “No… he said that what were the chances of you just happening to be out in the forest? He implied that you murdered Bridgette Spellsworth, heard him out for the walk he claims he was taking through the forest, and then doubled back, in order to pretend that he was the one who arrived on the scene first.”

  I looked at the detective. He looked back at me.

  A long moment passed.

  “I’m going to kill him,” I said, before pressing my hands over my mouth. I’d suddenly remembered that this was being recorded. And I’d just made what might be interpreted as a death threat.

  Fine. Something that would definitely be interpreted as a death threat.

  “I didn’t mean that. I just meant I’m going to kill him with love and forgiveness… because he’s a lying snot rag,” I amended.

  The detective looked like he’d aged ten years in the ten minutes we’d been talking.

  Finally, I couldn’t take it any more. We were going round in circles, and I knew the real reason why. “I get it. You’re still not over the whole breaking and entering thing that may, or may not have occurred around the same time that the perpetrator of a crime was brought to justice.” Ha! See? I was totally learning how to play the legal game!

  “Previous incidents have no bearing whatsoever on this case. I am looking for the truth,” the detective said, lying through his teeth.

  “Then maybe you should be looking for the person who did this to Bridgette. You already know she
had enemies.” I raised my eyebrows at the detective.

  “Was Mr Heathen one of them?”

  “I don’t think so,” I grudgingly admitted. As much as Jesse was annoying the heck out of me right now, I didn’t think he’d killed Bridgette because of a grudge. That didn’t mean I was ruling him out as a suspect - I’d found him at the scene of a murder, and I could write a book about the things I didn’t know about Jesse Heathen - but I didn’t yet understand what his motive for murder might be.

  “Names,” the detective said, pulling out a pen and a paper from somewhere.

  “Names please,” I automatically corrected, before realising who I was talking to… and that this conversation was being recorded. Great. I was coming across as a well-mannered psychopath. “Natalia Ghoul,” I said, before the detective could tell me where to stick my ‘please’. “You should probably also question Ally Paulson. I don’t think she’d do it, but she’s not very fond of Bridgette.” I was skirting the truth a bit.

  The detective stopped writing. “Not very fond?”

  “You’ll have to ask her.”

  “Evidently,” Detective Admiral said, giving up on the questioning. He dropped the pen onto the table with a loud clatter.

  “Am I free to go?” I asked, when he didn’t say anything for a while.

  “We’re finished here. It is your responsibility to ensure that you are available for any further questions we may have pertaining to this case. You can go next door and tell Mr Heathen he is also free to leave,” he informed me, looking exceedingly peeved at the thought of having to let the other man go without being able to arrest him for doing something illegal.

  I stood up to leave.

  “Please,” he added at the last second.

  I looked back at Sean Admiral and gave him the ghost of a smile. There was hope for the detective yet.

  Jesse Heathen, on the other hand, could crawl back into whatever hole he was living in prior to coming to Wormwood and ruining my life.

  I stalked down the corridor and opened the door to his interview room.

  He raised his dark eyebrows at me. “Did you kill the detective as well as the fortuneteller?”

  I should have just left him waiting in that room forever.

  3

  New Me Tea

  “Why do you smell like death and… police station?” Hemlock asked when I walked in through the shop door.

  I frowned at the adolescent black cat, who was sitting in the middle of a large and previously expensive indoor herb garden. “How do you know what a police station smells like?”

  “I have my own life. There’s stuff you don’t know about me,” he told me, primly washing a paw.

  I grabbed him and tossed him out of the herb garden, surveying the flattened parsley and mint with dismay. Maybe they would perk up with some persuasion? I mentally scratched the idea and accepted that I would have to reduce the price. Cats were the worst.

  Correction - Hemlock was the worst.

  “So… who died?” he asked, trying to slink past me and sit on a different herb garden.

  I picked him up and returned him to the first one. I knew a lost cause when I saw one. “Bridgette Spellsworth. Someone murdered her.”

  “Who’s been murdered?” Aunt Linda said, walking into the shop with bright green hair.

  I repeated what I’d just said, whilst trying to decide whether I should or shouldn’t acknowledge her hair.

  “Oh, well. She was pretty old,” Linda said, as if being murdered when you reached a ripe old age made it okay.

  My expression must have given my thoughts away.

  “I’m just saying… it’s better to go out with a bang!”

  “She was stabbed in the back, her head was nearly ripped off, and she’d been drained of blood,” I told my aunt.

  Linda looked thoughtful. “That is going out with a bang. And stop looking at my hair! I don’t know how it happened. I was just trying to wash it using my normal shampoo…”

  “Uh-oh, gotta go,” Hemlock said, jumping out of his herb garden and running for the door.

  Aunt Linda stuck her hands on her hips and gave me a serious look. “You need to keep him out of your spell books. Familiars are supposed to be there to help you with your magic, not to dabble in it themselves.”

  “You’ve no idea what it’s like being just another black cat in a town full of them. I just wanted to be pretty,” Hemlock fake sobbed from the doorway. “But hey! At least now I know the spell works…” I heard the sound of his laughter fading as he ran off, presumably to find the be-spelled shampoo.

  I looked questioningly at Aunt Linda.

  “I already binned it, but I should have changed the spell and made it into one that removes hair. Then Baldilocks might think twice about messing around with magic.”

  “Even he’s better at it than I am,” I complained. It was an undeniable fact. He may have turned Aunt Linda’s hair green instead of his fur, but he had actually turned something green.

  “You’re worrying too much. That always makes things backfire, so don’t. The last time Minerva was stressed over a business investment, she tried to do a spell to make her petunias grow and ended up turning them into flesh-eating flowers. The postman refused to deliver to us after that.”

  “Worrying is bad, got it,” I said, not feeling any less pressure in the slightest. It had almost been better when no one had been expecting anything of me. Now that there were all these visible signs of power hanging around my aura, but no decent magic to show for it, I was somehow more of a failure than I had been before.

  “Hazel, you’re back! Good. We should look over some more of those spells. I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it soon,” Aunt Minerva said, sweeping into the room with her champagne blonde hair looking perfectly blow-dried.

  “But don’t worry if it doesn’t work,” Linda added, smiling slightly maniacally at me, probably in an effort to persuade me to be less stressed.

  Minerva looked across at her sister’s green hair. “Are you going through another phase? I don’t want a repeat of the 1960s.”

  “No. It was the cat! But do you think it makes me look sixty years younger than I really am?” She grinned.

  Aunt Minerva ignored her.

  Both of my aunts were a lot older than they looked. If the government conducted a census and realised they were both still alive, they’d immediately be accused of being frauds… or offered some kind of skincare promotion deal with a beauty company. I only hoped that I would look as good as they did when I was over one-hundred-years-old. Unless something in my magical method changed, it was probably unlikely. That was - if the stress didn’t make me grey first!

  “Have you been studying this evening?” Minerva asked me.

  “My walk took longer than I anticipated,” I began.

  “Someone was murdered!” Linda helpfully jumped in.

  “Hazel… is there something you want to tell us?”

  “I didn’t kill anyone,” I said, exasperated that people would even think that of me. “I found Jesse Heathen at the scene of the crime literally standing over the body. If anyone’s a murderer, it’s probably him.”

  “Did the police arrest him?” Minerva asked.

  “I’ll bail him out. He’s cute!” Linda smiled and primped her green hair.

  “He wasn’t arrested. But he did ruin my walk,” I said, before realising how selfish that sounded when a woman had lost her life in the forest today. “I don’t trust him,” I finished, lamely.

  “He did use some kind of charm to make everyone like him,” Minerva said, before shooting Linda a sharp look.

  “I just think of it as makeup,” she told her sister, still doing the dreamy eyes over Jesse.

  “We should be encouraging our niece to focus on her magic studies. It’s an important time in her life.”

  “Why is it so important?” I asked, feeling completely at sea in all of this.

  “It just is,” Linda said, way too quickly.
<
br />   I looked between my aunts. “What is going on?”

  “Nothing you need to worry about. It’s just important to be prepared for any eventuality,” Minerva told me.

  “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to give me an example of such an eventuality?” There was definitely something going on, and something I wasn’t being told. It seemed to be a running theme in my life right now.

  “What exactly happened to the poor person who you found in the woods?” Minerva asked, very obviously changing the subject.

  I knew better than to try to divert it back. Straight answers were something everyone around here seemed to be an expert at avoiding. “I’m not sure. I already told Aunt Linda about the state Bridgette’s body was in, but there were a couple of strange things about it… stranger than a normal murder. Not that murder is normal,” I hastily added. I was probably still more shocked by what I’d seen than I was even admitting to myself. It was making my thoughts go all funny.

  “Strange how?” my aunt asked.

  “According to Jesse, she’d been exsanguinated. I don’t know anything about these things, but the body did look really pale, and even though there were bad wounds, there wasn’t much… blood,” I finished, having a vivid flashback to what Brigette Spellsworth had looked like, lying dead on the rocks in the middle of the forest. “There was also a cauldron and a silver coin left on the ground near to the body,” I said, hurrying on. “Don’t you think that’s weird?”

  “Perhaps. But this is Wormwood,” Aunt Minerva said, reaching for the stock explanation for anything unusual that happened in or around the town.

  “I suppose you’re right,” I said, pretending to let it go and focus my attention on the squashed-beyond-all-recognition herb garden.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my aunts give each other a significant look as something was communicated. It didn’t help me get any closer to the truth, but it confirmed my suspicions.