The Magic of Murder

by Susan Lynn Solomon

  In my mind, I saw Roger shrug. “Maybe the two murders aren’t connected. Have you considered that?”

  “They are. They have to be,” Rebecca insisted. “If they’re not, why’s someone trying to kill Emlyn?”

  I smiled at her. Good girl, she had spoken my thought.

  “And your theory still leaves your boss on the hook for his wife’s murder,” I added.

  My smile faded. If I were wrong, and the Osborn and the Woodward murders weren’t committed by the same person— “If the two aren’t connected, it means someone is still after me, Roger. Why? What did I do to make someone want to—?”

  “Maybe it’s that creepy Fred Silbert. Maybe he broke your window so you’d call him and he could get close to you, give you comfort.”

  “Comfort from a firebomb?” I shouted into the phone. “If it was Freddy and he just wanted my attention, why’d he try to kill me by burning down Main Street Books?”

  For a long moment all we heard were honks of car horns and engines revving. At last Roger said, “Yeah, I hadn’t thought of that. Well, you and Rebecca stay tucked in at your house. I’ll be by later and we’ll figure it out. Meantime, I’m just getting to the Buffalo News with an arrest warrant made out in Sean Ryan’s name. I called Marge Osborn an hour ago and she told me he said he was coming here. Don’t wanna give him a chance to slip away.”

  ***

  I grumbled. “Stay tucked in until he gets back? Not gonna happen.”

  “Just what I was thinking,” Rebecca said. “You seem to have an idea about what’s really going on. What do we do?”

  Again my mind flashed to the old crone I’d envisioned in the snow in my backyard. “We go where Sarah pointed,” I said.

  Rebecca’s brow creased.

  “She told us what we need to know.”

  My friend stared, as if I’d winked at her with the third eye Roger sometimes saw in the center of my forehead. “What did Sarah tell us? The herbs we need for an amulet of truth aren’t written in her book.”

  “We don’t need to know them. Think about what Sarah said.”

  Rebecca’s lips moved when she silently repeated my words.

  “Betrayal,” I said.

  Elvira rubbed against my leg. When she lifted her head, I think I saw pride in her eyes.

  “I don’t get it,” Rebecca said. “From what we’ve heard, this has been about illegal drugs.”

  “Yes and no.”

  She gave me another look of incomprehension.

  “Sure, cocaine is at the bottom of it,” I said, “and that might explain why Jimmy Osborn was killed. But it doesn’t tell us why Amy Woodward died, or why someone’s come after me. Roger’s content with the idea Amy’s murder isn’t connected, that happening when it did is just a coincidence.”

  “It might be.”

  “It might,” I agreed. “But if it isn’t—” I thought for a minute then said firmly, “No, it’s not.”

  Rebecca gave a short laugh. “Chasing after your spinning mind exhausts me.”

  “No, no, listen,” I said. “Presume for a second Sarah wasn’t being metaphorical when she wrote about betrayal. What if the murders were really about—?”

  I stopped in mid-sentence, recalling the way Marge glared at Sean when I brought the casserole the day of Jimmy’s funeral. The message she wanted to send me finally got delivered. But there was one other thing. I closed my eyes and sighed. The butterfly I’d been trying to grasp at last flitted close enough to snatch. What I saw on its wings was such a small thing. The killer hadn’t thought it would be a give-away, but it was. Now the final patch for the crazy quilt fell into place. As if I finally saw the true meaning beneath one of my story-lines, the complete scenario spread out before me in all its lovely complexity—lovely, being a relative term for the ruptured protagonist I envisioned. My hands folded across my stomach, I closed my eyes and smiled. What I pictured explained everything: the drugs, the Corvette, Jimmy’s death, Amy’s, the bottles thrown through windows—

  There was one tiny detail that refused to fit into the pattern.

  As if out of breath from running to catch up with me, Rebecca panted, “Yes, betrayal. Sean Ryan betrayed his father-in-law. Kevin Reinhart betrayed you and Sean Ryan and the guys from the barn.”

  “No. Sarah wrote of a deeper, more hurtful betrayal.”

  “I really can’t follow you.” Rebecca bit the corner of her lip.

  That one tiny detail nagged at me, as if it were a flaw in one of my stories. I turned to the French doors, hoping I’d see Sarah Goode outside and she’d provide the final answer. I saw only a white blanket spread across my yard. I sat up straight. At this point the missing detail didn’t matter, I decided. Everything else fit so perfectly.

  I knew what I had to do.

  “Is there any undyed linen in your shoulder bag?” I asked Rebecca.

  She rapidly blinked, trying, I supposed, to conjure up a path through the maze into which I’d led her.

  “And some dry herbs.”

  “What herbs? Sarah didn’t tell us—”

  “Doesn’t matter. We can grab a couple from my spice closet. And silk thread. Red. I have a spool in my sewing kit.”

  “I don’t get it,” Rebecca said. “Without the right ingredients and a ceremony to purify them, the amulet you’re gonna make won’t do anything.”

  “Oh, but it will,” I said.

  The creases in her forehead grew so deep I thought her eyeballs might roll into the crevices.

  “While those gypsy women were teaching you to read tarot cards,” I said, “my father taught me to play with a poker deck. ‘Daughter,’ he’d say to me while he systematically won back my allowance, ‘it doesn’t matter what cards you’re holding if you know how to bluff.’”

  Rebecca laughed out loud.

  “What?”

  “I think the student has become the teacher,” she said.

  “We’ll soon find out.” I rose from the sofa and grabbed my crutches and coat. “I’ll put the amulet together in the car.”

  She didn’t move.

  “Come on!” I said.

  “Uh, have you forgotten something?”

  With my hand on the doorknob, I counted my supplies. “Linen, dried oregano, dried thyme, dried rosemary, silk thread—nope, I’ve got it all.”

  Again she laughed. “What about car keys? Roger confiscated both yours and mine after our little romp through town. Remember?”

  “Is that all?” I said.

  I hobbled to the kitchen and opened what I call my utility drawer. In it were three spare sets of keys. As I pulled one out, I said, “When I’m writing, time isn’t the only thing I lose track of.” I handed her the keys. “It’s easier to have lots of these than to try and remember where I left them.”

  Still laughing, she scooped up Elvira and followed me out.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The Elusive Butterfly

  Snow again fell. An inch or so of fresh white powder covered my driveway. In the southern part of the United States, half this amount could bring a city to a standstill. Not in Western New York. On almost every block, plows were at work. Between the plows, salt-spreaders, and heat from the friction of rubber tires on the pavement as cars sped past, the streets from my house to Niagara Falls were reasonably clear. In a quarter of an hour, we turned the corner onto Twenty-Third Street, then right onto Independence Avenue.

  The brick ranch stood about a quarter of the way down the block. Instead of the Corvette, a green Chevy Malibu was parked in the driveway. It looked to be the car I saw across the street from the Woodwards’ house while I floated above Niagara Falls on a besom. Of course, I knew I hadn’t really ridden a broom across the night sky and into the day before. That was a dream I had when I fell asleep while meditating. The experience seemed real enough, though, to have been the kind of out-of-body flight Sarah Goode suggested in her Book of Shadows. Maybe, as Roger told me when this whole mess began, I actually had seen or heard som
ething that remained just beyond the edge of my awareness. Maybe what I saw or heard was why, in a dream state, I placed the Malibu at the Woodwards’ house the night Amy was murdered. This was certainly a more logical answer—one Roger would leap for if I told him of my broom ride. Regardless of why, I recognized the car then and I recognized it now. It was the ’67 Malibu Sean Ryan had restored.

  Rebecca saw a smile crease my lips. “What?” she said.

  I pointed at the green car. “If Sean came here instead of heading for Buffalo, we can write an end to this story right now.”

  At the moment, it didn’t occur to me if Roger’s solution was correct, Sean would have the gun that had already killed two people, and desperate, he wouldn’t hesitate to use it again. I didn’t think of it because I was distracted when Elvira began to scratch at the window of my Valiant.

  Clutching the amulet I’d put together while we drove, I opened my car door.

  Elvira leaped out and made a beeline for the Osborns’ house.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  Rebecca seemed as anxious as I. She slid from behind the steering wheel, and we chased after the cat—well, to be exact, she chased, I hobbled.

  Marge’s front door stood open. Elvira now clawed the storm door. As we climbed the two front steps, I heard crying inside. Rebecca nudged the cat away from the door. I opened it a crack. Elvira shoved it the rest of the way and scooted in.

  When we followed, I saw Marge Osborn on her couch in front of the oriel window. Her arms were wrapped around her daughter. I glanced at them, then turned and peered past the formal dining room and through the door to the dark kitchen.

  “Sean, are you back there?” I called.

  Jennifer let out a long wail.

  “Is he here?” Rebecca said.

  Except for Jennifer’s moans, nothing stirred in the house.

  “Doesn’t seem so,” I said.

  “Why did you come here?” Marge’s shrill voice bled into what sounded like two sirens somewhere on her block.

  She wore the same floral housecoat she had on the last time I’d been at her house. Her face was strained, her eyes red. Jennifer was in a flannel bath robe. She had rubber boots over her bare legs. It was as if she’d fled from her apartment without taking time to dress. I didn’t need a degree in psychology to understand why she would have fled. Her cheek and left eye were bruised. I was sure her husband had beaten her.

  Before I could ask if my assumption was correct, the storm door flew open.

  My head snapped around.

  Roger’s broad body filled the doorway. He had his pistol out. “Where’s Ryan?” he demanded.

  Jennifer’s moan became a loud cry.

  In a few long strides, he was near the kitchen. His gun held out in both hands, he slid along the wall, then rushed through the door.

  “Ryan’s not out here,” a male voice called from the side of the house.

  “Clear on this side,” another voice called.

  Roger’s shoulders relaxed. He holstered his gun.

  Marge hissed, “That dirty bastard. Sean’s to blame for everything!”

  Roger returned to the living room. He glanced at me then at Rebecca. “I should have known you two wouldn’t stay put,” he muttered. He reached into the pocket of his camelhair coat, pulled out two sets of car keys—Rebecca’s and mine—and looked questioningly at them.

  Rebecca smiled. I shrugged. Elvira rubbed her back against his legs (I was sure if I looked closely, I’d see the cat’s nose was brown).

  “I should run the two of you in for interfering with an investigation.” Roger didn’t sound amused.

  “Your investigation was in Buffalo,” I said. “Rebecca and I came here to comfort my friend.”

  He glared at me and gave a long-suffering sigh. “You and I are gonna have a long conversation later.”

  Satisfied I’d been sufficiently chastised for the moment, Roger brushed me aside and leaned over the couch. It seemed as though he wanted to leave no room for the two women on it to escape into a lie. Again he demanded, “Where’s Ryan?”

  “Gone,” Jennifer groaned.

  “Where?”

  “Leave her alone!” Marge growled. “Don’t you see what that monster’s done to my baby?”

  Her reaction to the bruises on Jennifer’s face, Sean Ryan’s car at the Woodwards’ house: the elusive last patch settled into place on the crazy quilt my imagination had stitched together. I knew how the last scene was intended to play out. I wouldn’t let it. I’d already written the story’s end my way.

  I elbowed Roger aside and dropped down on the couch. Gently, I touched the mouse under Jennifer’s eye. “He did this to you?”

  She nodded, and sniffed.

  “When?” Roger’s voice was still harsh.

  I shot a warning glance at him. “You’re not helping.”

  He huffed. For a second I thought he might lift me from the couch and toss me out the door. Thank goodness he didn’t act on such an impulse. Grumbling, he backed away.

  I smiled a thank you. Then, stroking Jennifer’s cheek, I asked, “He hits you all the time, doesn’t he?”

  I felt all her muscles tense.

  Marge shoved me. “Stop it. Stop this right now!

  I refused to be moved. “We need to stop Sean so he never hits you again.”

  “It’s my fault!” burst from Jennifer.

  Tears ran down Marge’s cheeks. She rubbed her daughter’s arm. “It’s not your fault.”

  Jen leaned away from her mother. Her face in her hands, still crying, she said, “It is. They work him so hard at that newspaper. They insist he has to stay at it night and day if he wants to keep his job. Then he comes home, and just wants to rest up. But I won’t let him. I’m tired of being in the house all day, I tell him. I want to go out to dinner or…or to a movie…” Her voice quivered into another sob.

  “He told you they work him hard?” Roger said. “I just came from the News. His editor told me Ryan was fired a couple of weeks ago because he stopped showing up.”

  “It’s…it’s not true. It can’t be.”

  I had no idea whether Roger had told her the truth. But, to draw out the admission we needed I knew I had to swear it was so.

  “The paper let him go,” I said. “Half Niagara Falls knows it. Now you also have to let him go.”

  Jennifer buried her face in Marge’s ample bosom.

  I turned to Rebecca. “Is there any more of that balm you used on my leg?”

  She dug into her shoulder bag and pulled out a vial. Then she reached for Jennifer’s hand. “Come with me, hon,” she said. “This will help ease your pain.”

  I knew Rebecca and the brews she concocted. The pain her balm would ease was both the physical and the emotional kind. I pointed to the hall running next to the kitchen. Rebecca led the still crying Jennifer to a bedroom.

  Roger dropped onto an armchair close to the sofa and leaned forward. Adopting my approach, he took Marge’s hand. In an intimate tone, he said, “I know what you and your daughter have had to put up with. Let me help you put an end to it. Tell me where Sean is.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Does Jen?” I asked.

  “She only knows he burst into their apartment and then left again.”

  While she wrung a tissue, Marge told us Sean had gotten to his apartment nearly two hours ago. Without a word, he threw clothes into a suitcase. When Jennifer asked where he was going, he smacked her. He didn’t have time for her stupid questions, he said. A friend waited for him downstairs. He told Jen if anyone asked, she was to say she didn’t know anything, hadn’t seen him in days. If she didn’t, he said, he would come back and kill her and Marge, too. Ryan said he’d killed before, Marge told us, and would do it again. Just to be certain Jennifer understood, he punched her three times and left her crumpled on their bedroom floor.

  “For all Jen knows,” Marge said, “he’s across the border in Canada by now. He has fami
ly in Toronto.” She let out a wail. “Jimmy! That bastard killed my Jimmy.” She closed her eyes and fell against the arm of the couch.

  Roger sat back in his chair. “I doubt Ryan’s gotten over the river yet,” he said. “There’s a Homeland Security alert at the border crossings. All the bridges to Canada are backed up for hours.

  He stood, pulled out his cell phone, moved to the dining area, and leaned against the china cabinet. With his back to us, he made a call. In a few minutes, he returned to his chair.

  “Sean won’t get far if Canada’s where he’s headed,” Roger said.

  The hope such news would ease Marge’s concern was misplaced. She sat up and again twisted the tissue. If I were right about all that had happened, I knew why: she didn’t want Sean to be caught.

  I held out the amulet I’d had in my hand since we arrived. “Mom taught me to make these things,” I said. “It’s supposed to help you feel better.”

  She stared at it.

  Roger’s eyes narrowed. It was as if he asked what I was up to.

  I held the amulet out. “I don’t know why,” I said, “but these things Mom made always helped me.”

  Marge sighed. “Your mother’s always been a little strange.”

  I nodded and laughed. “Don’t I know it?”

  Now was the time to find out if my theory proved right.

  Elvira scampered onto the fireplace mantel and brushed a paw on one of the photos. While Marge concentrated on the amulet, turning it over in her hands, I examined the family pictures: Marge and Jennifer, Jennifer and Sean. I had remembered correctly. There wasn’t a single picture of Jimmy in the room. It was as if Marge had tried to erase the memory of her husband.

  Betrayal, Sarah Goode had written. She hadn’t been thinking of the way teenage girls in Salem had betrayed her. No, it was a true betrayal of the heart, and in the end she’d accepted the blame for her betrayal of the marriage vows she had made to William Goode. When William learned she had given her heart to George Burroughs, longed only to be with him, and would run to him if she were able, he swore the oath that figuratively shoved her off a tree limb to dangle on Gallows Hill.