by Linnea West
Maggie thought about asking what she meant but decided to leave the questions for later. Using the jar in her hand, she swirled it through the air until all of the clear liquid in front of her was inside. Setting it down, she used the jar in her other hand to scoop some sort of green goop out of mid-air.
They worked as fast as they could until suddenly, everything that was left hovering in the air fell down to the table as the magic wore off. Thankfully, all of the liquid ingredients had been captured and all that was left was the pile of sticks and a few pebbles that were easily collected off of the table and put in their own jars.
“How come we had to do that so fast?” Maggie asked once the excitement had worn off. Her heart was still beating ten million miles a minute, but at least there was no swirling potion in front of her face.
“The spell only lasts for a minute or so after the potion separates,” Esmeralda said. “Anything that hasn’t been collected loses the ability to levitate.”
“Can’t you just put another spell on it to make it levitate longer?” Maggie asked.
“I’m sure you could, but where’s the fun in that?” Esmeralda asked with a wink.
Maggie rolled her eyes and started to put lids and stoppers in all of the jars. Esmeralda fluttered around helping while she danced to the jazz music that was still playing in the background. Keeping her mind on the task, Maggie focused on getting the right tops on the right jars.
“Oh, well isn’t that interesting,” Esmeralda said.
Turning around, Maggie saw her mother standing over the cauldron that had the sieve over it. She was staring inside, no longer dancing around. Esmeralda turned and beckoned her to join her. When Maggie walked over, she could see the clue they had missed. The long green hair in the sieve told her that they would be paying Nancy a visit.
Chapter Eleven
“What do you mean you haven’t figured out who killed Linda yet?” Nancy screeched.
Somehow Esmeralda had charmed her way into the crone’s hovel where Nancy had put on her hostess manners long enough to sit them down and bring them out big mugs of tea before asking how the investigation was going. Nancy seemed actually surprised that the case wasn’t over and done with by that point. Maggie refrained from pointing out that a murder investigation takes time.
“We are working very diligently on it,” Esmeralda said before taking another sip of her tea.
She sounded so sincere that Nancy visibly relaxed back into her chair a bit more. The crone took a big sip of her own tea. When she went to set her mug down on the table, Maggie was surprised to see tears in her eyes. Nancy sniffled loudly, snorting phlegm back inside of her nose so loudly that it made Maggie shudder involuntarily.
“I’m just so distraught,” Nancy said. “Linda and I have been, I mean were, friends for so long.”
“I thought you had more of a frenemy relationship,” Esmeralda said.
Nancy turned and glowered a bit toward the older witch. Maggie felt like she was watching a daytime television drama. She couldn’t take her eyes away from Nancy even when it reached the point of being impolite. Nancy was just the oddest combination of proper and crude that Maggie had ever seen.
“Every friendship has a few fights along the way,” Nancy said. “Our problem was simply that we were both stubborn so neither of us wanted to be the one to apologize any time we had a fight. I still remember the time we didn’t talk for a whole year because we had a misunderstanding about where to meet up for a study date. I told her the statue in Central Park, but she thought I said the bench in Crater Park. I can laugh about it now, but it wasn’t so funny for that year we didn’t talk.”
Nancy chuckled to herself, a deep ugly laugh that made her large midsection jiggle. In the normal world, Nancy was a put-together woman who would probably only giggle with her hand in front of her mouth to hide her smile, but everything changed here in the paranormal world. Maggie had to think that Nancy’s crone paranormal self was just her inner normal self being let out to play.
Esmeralda took a polite sip of tea. Maggie could tell that her mother was not quite willing to laugh at that statement, even if it was said politely. She didn’t feel much like laughing either. Maggie only really had one friend and to be honest, she and Jill were only friends because Jill kept things up. She couldn’t imagine having a friend that she spent half of her time hating. It seemed like too much mental energy to put out.
“No matter, I think the two of you need to buckle down and really work on this case,” Nancy said. Her tone was suddenly serious and she pointed her crooked, warty finger at each witch in turn before taking a big, impolite slurp of her tea. “I know you say you are working, but you already took Ned away for her death yesterday. Isn’t the case closed now? What is holding things up?”
Esmeralda set her teacup down on the table in front of them with a small clink. Nancy’s beady eyes shot towards the cup as though she were checking to make sure that the witch hadn’t cracked her teacup. Esmeralda simply folded her hands in her lap and turned her knees so that she was facing Nancy.
“To be totally honest, you are the one holding us up,” Esmeralda said.
Nancy sat totally still for a moment while that sank in. Once it had permeated into her mind, it seemed to take hold and jolt her. Leaning forward, Nancy set her cup down roughly on the table, making twice the clink that Esmeralda had. She was so forceful about it that she fell halfway off of the couch, landing hard on her two bony knees. Maggie reached forward to help her up, but Nancy shoved Maggie’s hand away, popping up onto her two feet like a spring.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Nancy said.
“It means that you are officially a suspect,” Esmeralda said.
The older witch sat with her hands folded in her lap, looking serene and calm. Maggie wondered how exactly she could keep her cool in these situations. Maggie could feel all of her internal organs bubbling around like she was coming to a rolling boil. She was only a side player in this situation and she still felt on edge.
Maggie glanced over at Nancy. Her green hair was sticking straight out in all directions. It was like her surprise had radiated out through her hair, electrifying it with the shocking news. The crone was jumping up and down, stomping her feet like a temper tantrum might change what Esmeralda just said.
“What do you mean I’m a suspect?” Nancy shouted. She bounced around the living room as she shouted, making a path back and forth as she ranted and raved. “You brought Ned in. He was the one who made most of her potion. They were fighting before the class and Ned said he wasn’t going to teach any more classes at the store because of that stupid cauldron that broke. You can’t make me a suspect when Ned was the one who did it!”
Esmeralda sat still. She let the words roll right over her, simply picking up the teapot and pouring herself a new cup of tea. She offered some to Maggie, who held her cup out. Maybe if she kept her cup full, she’d be able to sip it and have an excuse to not be a part of this exchange. Esmeralda topped them both up before taking a sip from her steaming cup, waiting for Nancy to be done. Esmeralda looked at Maggie, tipping her head toward Nancy like she wanted Maggie to say something. Maggie shook her head no, just enough to show her mother that she did not want to join this exchange. She had no idea what to say. Once the crone wound down, Esmeralda finally took her turn to speak.
“If you know it was Ned for sure, you must have some proof,” Esmeralda said. She sat back in her chair and crossed her legs. “And if you actually have proof, you need to share it with me. Otherwise, we have as much proof that you did it as we do that Ned did it.”
Nancy stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry at Esmeralda. Maggie was so shocked that she accidentally tilted her cup and poured a little tea on the floor before realizing what was happening. Nancy was so wound up that she didn’t notice the accident, so Maggie tried to use her foot to wipe up the tea. All that did was smear the tea around on the wood floor, so instead Maggie tried to kick the small puddle of tea underneath the cha
ir she was sitting on.
“There’s no proof,” Nancy said with a sneer. “You’re just lying to try and get my goat. How dare you try to make the death of my closest friend into something so crude. I didn’t kill Linda. You’re trying to rile me up so that you can twist my words into something else. Well, it isn’t going to work.”
“Didn’t you help Linda finish her potion when she had to go check on something?” Esmeralda said.
Nancy sucked her breath in so forcefully through her teeth that Maggie was sure that she heard them clatter together. She seemed to suck all of the emotion in the room in with her breath because suddenly the air was still. Nancy collapsed down into her chair again, no longer popping around the room like some sort of demented jack in the box looking for her box.
Looking back and forth between Maggie and Esmeralda, Nancy opened her mouth like she was going to say something, but instead she just nodded her. Esmeralda shot a glance at Maggie that Maggie tried to ignore. Her mother wanted her to jump in and take part in the questioning, but Maggie didn’t know what to do. Her hands were shaking so much that Maggie carefully set her teacup down before she spilled any more on the floor. She was able to do it without clattering it, thankfully. She didn’t need to draw the angry eye of Nancy her way.
“And your friendship with Linda was pretty tenuous,” Esmeralda said. She uncrossed her legs and scooted forward to the edge of her seat. “I know you say you were best friends, but it seems like a pretty strange friendship if you spent almost as much time being angry with each other as you did speaking to each other.”
Nancy shut her mouth, her eyes growing wide as her bushy eyebrows disappeared under the green bangs that hung on her forehead. She kept looking back and forth between the witches as she tried to think of something to say.
“Those two things alone made me a bit suspicious of you, but I will admit that I was focused pretty hard on Ned for a little while,” Esmeralda said. “He seemed to have a better motive than you did. But then we found something that made me look at this case again. I found something that seems to incriminate you more than it does Ned.”
By this point, Maggie felt a bit like a houseplant in the situation. Her mother was so skilled, dealing with Nancy like it was no big deal. She wasn’t sure she would ever get to that point, no matter how hard her mother pushed her. Maggie was just glad that it would be a very long time before she actually had to take over the investigations. Her mother was still young and in good enough health to continue working with her for a long time to come. She could sit back and learn before she had to step up.
The silence in the room was deafening. Maggie glanced at her mother. Obviously, Esmeralda was waiting it out. She knew that eventually Nancy would crack and say something. Hopefully it would be something helpful.
“There was nothing to incriminate me,” Nancy said. By this point, her warty, deeply lined face had drained of the normal grayish-green color and Nancy was white as a sheet. “I didn’t kill Linda.”
“That’s what I thought too, but then I found this in Linda’s potion,” Esmeralda said.
Reaching into her cloak, Esmeralda pulled out a little clear plastic bag that had the green hair inside. It was still a little wet and a few drops of the yellow potion liquid had collected in the bottom corner of the bag as if to make it extra clear where the hair had come from.
Nancy squinted at the bag, leaning forward to inspect it but making no move to actually reach out and grab the bag. After a thorough inspection she slumped back in her chair, more laying down than sitting in it anymore.
“That’s my hair,” Nancy said.
“It sure is,” Esmeralda said. “No one else in town has hair that color.”
Nancy reached up and absentmindedly patted her hair with one hand like she was proud of her color. Maggie wasn’t sure if it had been meant as a compliment or not but it was obvious that Nancy took great pride in her hair, even though it looked like moss-covered sticks right now.
Maggie watched Nancy, feeling sad for the woman. Here was a woman who had been a popular lady at one point in time. Now she was reduced to being a sad crone, accused of murdering her best friend. There was something in the back of Maggie’s mind that was nagging at her. Something just didn’t seem right about this situation. But all of the signs pointed to Nancy. The puzzle pieces fit even if the picture didn’t make sense.
Then, Maggie could feel her mother staring at her once again. She glanced over. Esmeralda’s hazel eyes were fiery, pushing Maggie to do something, anything to be a part of the interrogation. Their interview with Nancy was wrapping up and she hadn’t said a word. Of course, Maggie would prefer it that way, but she knew she had to do something. There was only one thing left for her to say.
“Nancy, we are taking you in,” Maggie said. “You are now the main suspect in Linda’s murder.”
Chapter Twelve
After a very uncomfortable walk to the police station, Maggie was so glad to see the stone hovel emerge out of the mist. Nancy had tried to run away from them three different times before Esmeralda had finally put a spell on her to bind her with ropes that Maggie was currently holding the ends of. The crone had still tried to run away one more time, dragging Maggie along with her until Esmeralda had used magic to put up a bubble wall that Nancy ran into and bounced off of, falling flat onto her back. Nancy hadn’t tried to run away again.
Maggie pushed the door to the police station open, letting her mother push Nancy inside behind her. Officer Chris and Officer Wes were each sitting at their respective desks. The two desks flanked the door so that both of them could see whenever someone came in. In fact, they were both so eager to help anyone who walked in the door that they fell all over themselves to help each time the door opened.
This time was no different as the two gnomes both raced around their respective desks, running straight into each other and popping backward like two magnets rejecting each other. As each of them stood up, Maggie could hear them muttering underneath their breaths and from the sound of it, each one was muttering a long string of obscenities quietly enough that no one could understand them.
“How can I help you?” Officer Chris asked, elbowing Officer Wes out of the way.
“How can we help you was what he meant to say,” Officer Wes said, glaring at Officer Chris as he fended off the other officer’s elbow once again.
Maggie could hear her mother grumble. Esmeralda had made it very well-known to her that Officer Chris and Officer Wes were perhaps the worst part of her job, at least until the death problem started. They were tasked with upholding the peace in Grimwood Valley and they were also totally and completely inept at their jobs. In fact, Maggie sometimes wondered how they were able to do much of anything and why they were in charge at all. It made total sense that once a month, her mother practically delivered them open and shut cases complete with witnesses and clues. Esmeralda might be okay with the system of handing over the cases to the police to take care of, but the fact that those police were imbeciles really rubbed Maggie the wrong way.
She wasn’t sure if it was the fact that the police station felt vaguely closed off and comfortable or if she just knew how much her mother hated working with the police officers, but Maggie decided to suck it up and try to take over as the leader on this part of the case. She took a deep breath and tried to explain to the police officers what happened.
“We are here because we believe that Ned was not the one that killed Linda,” Maggie said. “We have reason to believe that Nancy killed Linda.”
Maggie turned to grab Nancy’s arm. Her plan had been to pull Nancy forward to present to the police, but from the way Nancy bared her teeth at her, Maggie thought better of it. She wouldn’t put it past the crone to bite her arm and refuse to let go.
“But Ned killed Linda,” Officer Chris said. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the jail cells. Maggie caught just a glance of Ned in one of them. He was stretched out on the small cot inside and from the look of it, he
was snoozing through this entire exchange.
“Yeah, he did it,” Officer Wes said. He wrinkled his nose at Officer Chris.
When it came to the two police officers, they both had to have their say. They were involved in a continual one-up-manship contest which was odd as they were also technically partners. It wasn’t enough to have one of them say something, the other one had to butt in also so that whoever they were talking to was fully aware that both of the officers were indeed a part of the investigation.
“Did he confess?” Maggie asked.
“Well no, but he was brought in last night and the note said he killed Linda,” Officer Chris said.
“He hasn’t confessed yet, but I’m sure he will soon,” Officer Wes said. “The note did say that he was the main suspect in the murder so that means that he did it.”
Esmeralda pushed her way past Maggie, still holding the other end of Nancy’s rope. She went by Maggie so forcefully that Maggie actually stumbled into the desk on the left side of the door, spilling the dregs of coffee left in the bottom of one earthenware mug all over the desktop. She tried to quickly sop it up with a few papers she found on the desk but it just started to make a soggy mess. Instead, she used the papers to scoot the puddle of coffee onto the floor.
Once again, nobody seemed to notice Maggie and her clumsiness. She was glad that no one made a comment, but this was the sort of event that would haunt her dreams for years to come. Maggie made a mental note not to drink any more beverages until the next day. This day was obviously cursed in that respect. Maggie was snapped back to the present as her mother started talking, her voice registering barely restrained anger in Maggie’s mind, but the officers seemed oblivious.
“I’m the one that wrote the note,” Esmeralda said. “I did not say that he killed Linda. I said he was the main suspect which means that he is the most likely to have done it but we have since found new evidence. Now we have a new main suspect and it is Nancy. Here she is.”
