The Magic of Murder

by Susan Lynn Solomon

  When I lifted the top book from the pile and opened it, I couldn’t help but smile. So this is what having a personal bodyguard feels like, I thought.

  I read aloud for almost forty-five minutes, pausing only to moisten my vocal chords from the bottle of water Zach had left on the table for me. I didn’t close the book until I reached the point where one more word would have caused me to squawk like the Canada geese that make a rest stop in my yard on their way to and from wherever it is they roost for the winter. Then, a smile painted across my face, I began to sign my name and write a few personalized words on the front plates of books the audience carried to the table.

  “Thanks for coming, Gwen,” I said, handing a book back.

  “What’s her name?” I asked a second woman who told me her daughter was a fan.

  Jennifer was next. At her side, Sean held tight to her arm, as if he were afraid she might go into a swoon if he released her.

  I glanced again at Roger then wrote, I know what he’s doing to you, in her book. Then I leaned over the table, and gave her another kiss.

  When they turned to leave, I came face-to-face with a wonderful surprise. Rebecca Nurse stood next in line. Sean was so tall I hadn’t seen her behind him.

  As usual, my friend wore no makeup. She had on her standard uniform: a ribbed turtleneck over loose pants with a floral design, and a maroon knit sweater vest which hung to her knees. Her waist-length salt and pepper curls were pulled back in a tight braid. The design on her very large shoulder bag matched her pants.

  “What are you doing here?” I said, beaming.

  She leaned over the table and patted my hand. “Had to come to make sure you’d behave yourself.”

  I laughed. “How am I doing?”

  She looked over her shoulder to where Roger stood with his hands clasped in front. “So far, so good,” she said.

  I was in my element. All was right with the world. I sat back, grinning, and gave myself a metaphoric pat on the head.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  A window to my right shattered. Splinters of glass rained onto my shoulders, the desk, the floor. Smoke billowed from a viscous blob spreading next to the desk. Something hissed. There was a spark, a flash. The black blob flared. The flame raced along the floor, under the desk. In a moment it was at my feet, on the hem of my pants. People ran for the door and got jammed in it as they shoved each other aside in a frenzy to reach the staircase. Somebody screamed—it might have been me, though I’m not sure about that.

  The next thing I knew, I lay on the floor near the far wall. Roger was on top of me, his eyes flashing around the large room. Rebecca knelt next to him and slapped at my pants leg. “She’s lucky,” she said. “None of the glass shards cut her.”

  I moved my eyes from side-to-side, searching for who Rebecca referred to. I raised my head. Zack Anaison stood in the center of the room. A fire extinguisher in his hands, he sprayed foam in every direction.

  My eyes turned to Roger. I truly wish I could have uttered a line a Nobel Laureate might have written, or at least a wise-ass remark such as, We have to stop meeting this way. But my eyes stung from the smoke and my right leg felt as though it were on fire. All I could think to say—rasp, actually—was the mundane, “What happened?”

  Then the initial shock wore off. The pain in my leg flared. I cried out, broke into a whimper.

  Roger gave me the briefest of hugs and rose to his knees. “You’ll be okay. I’ll get you the hospital.”

  He gazed at Rebecca who stood arms akimbo, with a stern look on her face.

  “We’ll get you to the hospital,” she corrected him.

  I was too stunned and in too much pain to react to the byplay between my friends. “What happened?” I asked again.

  “Another firebomb,” Roger said. He lifted me from the floor. “Whoever’s doing this built it right this time. Nearly got you. Maybe now you’ll listen to me.”

  Strange things run through one’s mind at such a moment. Tears dripping like large raindrops down my cheeks, I said. “My book, did I sign everyone’s copy?”

  Roger laughed. “Yeah, every damn one of ’em.”

  He hefted me in his arms and hugged me to his chest. Rebecca running interference ahead of us, he carried me to his Trailblazer.

  ***

  St. Mary’s Medical Center has grown over the years. Now it’s a campus consisting of brick buildings that sprawl over several acres a few miles from a bridge linking the United States to Canada.

  I have no idea how we got there so quickly, though I later learned Roger drove like a maniac. I do recall, at one point he yelled at a car in front of us, “Wasn’t that I’d get arrested, I’d blow you the hell off the road!”

  I lay on Rebecca’s lap in the back seat, still in a red world of pain. She wiped my tears with one hand, while she rubbed something on my leg with her other. All the while she whispered a chant I didn’t recognize. Whatever she rubbed on the burn helped. By the time we pulled into a parking spot near the doors to the emergency room, my leg had almost stopped screaming. Bless Rebecca and her balm. If panic hadn’t sapped my strength, I would have leaned forward and told Roger to never again deny the healing effect of Sarah Goode’s herb mixtures and chants.

  The Trailblazer slammed to a stop. Roger dropped his police tag where it could be seen through the windshield, then jumped out. He reached into the back seat, lifted me.

  “I can walk,” I mumbled, and tried to push his hands away.

  Rebecca leaned close. “Let him do this.”

  “Are you a matchmaker now?” I asked.

  She laughed. “No, only a friend.”

  As if my body weighed no more than a helium-filled balloon, Roger hoisted me in his arms and took off at a run. He seemed to glide across the icy pavement like a skater. Rebecca ran at his side, my handbag and the blackened remnant of the shoe that had been on my burned right foot in her hands. Once inside the hospital, Roger gently lowered me into a chair. While Rebecca sat next to me, holding my hand, he flashed his badge at people who were queued up to speak to the nurse behind the registry desk.

  “Official business,” he said as he cut to the front of the line. “Got a burn victim over there.”

  The nurse examined the badge, then Roger’s face. She must have seen urgency in his eyes, because she dispensed with the normal questions about my medical insurance. Lifting the telephone on her desk, she called into it, “We need a gurney out here, stat!”

  Seconds later, I was on a cart, headed for a swinging door.

  While he trotted beside it, Roger told Rebecca, “Wait here.”

  She latched onto the back of the gurney. “Not a chance.”

  What occurred next was a blur of motion, mostly in white, green, and orange. Four hands lifted me onto a hard bed inside a curtained enclosure. A nurse slit my pants leg up to my thigh. A doctor pulled aside the curtain. Standing beside the nurse, he examined the burns on my foot and leg. I leaned up on my elbows to watch. My skin looked like crisp bacon.

  “What caused this burn?” the doctor asked.

  Roger answered for me. “Some kind of gel. Won’t know what it is till I get it to the lab.”

  The doctor nodded. To me he said, “Are you in much pain?”

  Strangely, I wasn’t. I looked at Rebecca. Her expression was blank.

  “Seems as though someone started treatment,” the doctor said.

  Roger turned to Rebecca.

  “I rubbed her leg with oil made of sandalwood, carnation petals, and rosemary,” she said.

  “You had that with you?” Roger asked.

  She peered through the curtains at people in green scrubs who rushed back and forth. “Never know when it might be needed.”

  Still on my elbows, I stared at her back. If I could see her face, I’m pretty sure there would have been a sly grin on it.

  The doctor scraped some of the burned skin from my leg. “That hurt?” he asked.

  I cringed.

  He s
hook his head. I guess he thought I should have screamed in pain. He pulled a pointed instrument from his breast pocket, ran it along the sole of my foot.

  The muscle contracted. I giggled.

  Again the doctor shook his head. He glanced at Roger. “When did you say this occurred?”

  “No more than half an hour ago.”

  The doctor’s eyes narrowed. “You’re sure? A victim doesn’t always get the timeframe right.”

  “I was there when the fire started,” Roger said. He didn’t seem inclined to explain someone had tried to firebomb me twice in two days.

  The doctor rubbed his chin. “Don’t understand why she isn’t in severe pain,” he said to the nurse. “Probably shock.” To me, he said, “In an hour or two the shock will abate and you might be in considerable pain.”

  The nurse handed him a hypodermic and a small vial. He drew the liquid in, tapped the needle. “This will help fight infection—”

  “Won’t be any,” I heard Rebecca whisper.

  “—and I’ll write you a scrip for some pain meds. Meantime, we’ll get that leg bandaged. Make an appointment for your primary to take a look at it in a few days.”

  That said, the doctor smiled at me, pulled the curtain aside, and was off to his next patient. His puzzlement over why I suffered so little pain had apparently been forgotten.

  ***

  In less than two hours we were in Roger’s car, driving to Niagara Falls at a saner rate of speed. The crutches the nurse had given me were on the floor beneath my feet. We dropped Rebecca off where her ten-year-old Saturn Ion was parked behind a couple of squad cars outside Main Street Books. When she opened the door, I tried to climb out after her.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Roger asked.

  “I’ve got to speak to Zack Anaison,” I said. “I want to find out how much damage was done to his meeting room.” I felt guilty about his store being hurt in an attack on me.

  “You don’t have to talk to him now,” Roger said.

  “I do,” I argued. “I feel just awful about it.”

  He heaved a Lord-give-me-patience sigh. “Stay where you are. I’ll talk to him.”

  He slid from the Trailblazer, said a few words to the cop standing guard at the door, and disappeared inside. Ten minutes later he returned, followed by Zack, who told me not to fret over the damage. It was minor, he said. Some sanding and stain, it would look good as new. Better even, since the room had “nary a moment’s work done to it in ’bout fifty years” (Bookworm Anaison tended to talk like a character in a Zane Gray story).

  “Satisfied now?” Roger said to me as he started the car.

  I leaned toward the window, and glanced around. Rebecca had already left. Without saying goodbye? I hoped she wasn’t angry with me. Of course, I hadn’t done anything to her. But that’s the way guilt affects a person. Having crept in, I felt as though I were to blame for everything since Eve handed Adam a wormy apple.

  I also felt as though Roger must be angry at me, because he didn’t say a word all the way from Main Street Books until he turned into my driveway. It was then I knew Rebecca, at least, wasn’t angry. She had parked in a cleared spot near my garage and was leaning on the hood of her car.

  I soon learned Roger wasn’t angry, either. As he lifted me from the back seat, he said, “I’ll take you inside, help you pack a few things. Then you’ll stay at my house till we catch the bastard who’s doing this to you.”

  I pulled my front door key from my bag.

  Rebecca took the key from my hand. With a sideways glance at Roger, she said, “Emlyn can stay at home where she’ll be comfortable. I’ll stay with her, make sure she’s all right.”

  I had spent so much time with Roger lately, I was able to translate the language of his sighs. This one said, Great, now I have two of you to worry about.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Reasons to Kill

  Rebecca hung her coat as well as Roger’s in the hall closet, and carried her ten gallon-sized floral shoulder bag into the kitchen.

  Roger carried me into my living room (I have to admit I was getting happily used to this), and helped me get settled on the sofa. He tucked a couple of cushions under my leg.

  “Doctor said you should keep this raised,” he told me.

  All the while, as if demanding, What did you do her! Elvira glared at him from beneath my desk.

  He took the afghan from where I had folded it over the arm of my wingback chair. As he straightened the cover, he stopped and stared at the runes my grandmother sewed into it. “I saw these in that book of yours,” he said. “What are they?”

  Observant man, he didn’t miss a thing and what he saw he remembered.

  I had researched those symbols online. Though most remained a mystery I hoped to decipher someday, I did manage to find a few. “This one’s for protection,” I said. “And this symbolizes the wisdom to use the plants growing all around us.”

  “Only for good, I hope,” Roger said. “I don’t want to have to arrest you for poisoning someone.”

  I smiled at him, and pointed to the protection rune. “If I ever do, I’ll use this to make sure you never find out.”

  He let out a booming laugh. “Wonderful, I live next door to a potential mass murderer.” All at once, his face grew serious. “Best thing is to stay very close so I can keep an eye on you. Maybe we ought to—”

  Before he carried the idea where he seemed to want to take it, from the kitchen, Rebecca called, “Can I get anyone something while I’m in here?”

  The moment was lost.

  “I’m good,” I called back.

  “A beer would be nice,” Roger said.

  He parked himself in my wingback chair next to the bookcases and beneath the railroad station clock. He began to thumb through the television section of the Buffalo News. After a minute, he grunted, “Daytime television.” He tossed the TV section onto the coffee table. “If I had nothing to do all day but watch soap operas, I might stick a gun in my mouth.”

  I smiled at him. “Beer’s on the bottom shelf of the fridge,” I called to Rebecca. “Better get this guy one quick. He’s about to go off the deep end.”

  In a few moments, she handed him a bottle, a glass, and a coaster.

  He placed the coaster on the lamp table and the beer on top of it. Then he looked at the glass as if he had no idea what it might be for.

  Rebecca solved his dilemma when she said, “That thing in your hand? The beer goes in it.”

  “Guys,” I said, and shrugged.

  Elvira shimmied from under my desk and jumped onto Roger’s lap. Her head swiveling from the beer to him, she licked her lips.

  “Untamed animals, both of them,” Rebecca remarked.

  She relieved Roger of the unwanted glass and returned to the kitchen. I heard cabinets open and close, then a couple drawers. Finally I heard the teapot whistle. In a minute she was back, carrying a mug of tea. This she handed to me.

  “Don’t want tea,” I said.

  “It’s herbal. Drink it,” she insisted. “It’ll help the healing process.”

  For a moment, Roger stared at her with the same expression he had shown me when I told him about Sarah Goode. Then, with a shake of his head, he picked up the newspaper and turned to the sports section.

  Perched on his lap, Elvira seemed to read along with him. My friend and my cat had apparently formed a bond.

  “By the way,” Rebecca said, “the message light is blinking on your phone.

  “Oh?”

  “Don’t you want to know who it is? Might be important,” Roger said without looking up from the paper.

  With my mind filled by the memory of how my foot and leg had gotten burned, I wasn’t much interested in who might have phoned.

  “Ought to find out,” Rebecca said. Without an invitation to do so, she pushed the Message button.

  Immediately, a thin version of Marge Osborn’s voice spoke from the small speaker.

  “Emlyn, are you ho
me yet?” she said. “If you are, pick up.” She sounded frantic. “Jen told me what happened at the book store. Are you okay? Emmy, I’m worried about you. I hope this has nothing to do with you asking questions about my husband’s death. The way you almost interrogated us the other day—who else are you questioning? Don’t deny you’re doing it, I know you too well. You can’t help yourself. Probably want to turn it into one of your stories. Anyhow, I’d feel just awful if another person got hurt. Call me. Let me know you’re okay. And promise me you’ll stop snooping—I don’t want you get hurt worse. Okay?”

  Roger and Rebecca looked at me.

  “It’s not snooping,” I said. “It’s research.”

  Roger snickered. “Oh, is that what they call it these days?”

  I had the good grace to blush.

  “Well, then,” Rebecca said, “go ahead, research.” She held out the telephone receiver. “What’s her number?”

  I rolled onto my side, trying to find a position in which my leg might not sting. “Later,” I said. “I don’t much feel like talking right now.”

  We sat quietly for a while, Roger reading the sports section, Rebecca gazing through the slatted blinds on the French doors. Then, as if she realized something, her eyes scrunched.

  I followed her glance to Sarah Goode’s book at the edge of the coffee table. I hadn’t put it away when I left the house earlier. I hadn’t expected company and there was no longer a point in hiding it from Roger.

  Rebecca’s eyebrows crimped up as she asked a silent question.

  “It’s okay, he read it,” I told her.

  “Did he?” She peeked at Roger.

  “He found it when he stayed over last night.”

  From the way her eyes glittered, I suspected my friend believed he had done more than just sleep on my couch. With Roger in the room, I didn’t want to tell how close I’d come to letting him do much more. In fact, I didn’t want to remind myself.

  “I still don’t believe in that mumbo-jumbo stuff,” Roger said. He didn’t raise his eyes from the News.

  The sun had set. I looked at my watch. It was almost seven-thirty.

  As if he were keeping a weather-eye on my every movement, Roger looked up and smiled.