Once Upon an Equinox

by Dovie Ruth

  “Oh, my breaking heart! While I was stranded here, the coven has probably burned through my credit cards and robbed my house.” Delaney plucked her hoodie from beneath the bed. “Well, at least they missed something.” She held out her collection of human teeth for Captain O’Day to see. “Do you believe me now?”

  The fireman turned the teeth over in his hands and tried to rub away the black soot that was still wedged in the crevices. “I’ll tell you what, Miss Delaney. This house and this property is officially a crime scene. I need to get the sheriff’s department up here to search the rest of the house and property. And I need to get you to the hospital in an ambulance.”

  “An ambulance?” Delaney clarified. “I don’t need to go to a hospital.”

  Captain O’Day rested his strong freckled hand on Delaney’s shoulder. “Look, if my wife was in this same situation, I'd give her the same advice. You’re pregnant, you’ve been drugged, you’ve been out in the elements all night, and you look dehydrated. Please do what’s right for your baby.”

  The kind man’s words of wisdom set Delaney to crying again. “Please let me change out of this robe first,” she begged. “It’s not mine, and I can’t wait to get out of it. And I really need to eat something … that is if they didn’t steal all the snacks I stowed in my backpack.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Fox, but we’re going to have to leave the house right now. The sheriff’s department is going to want to see everything just as Miss Beasom and her guests left it.” The captain motioned for Delaney to exit through the French doors. “Why don’t you sit here on the chaise lounge on the deck while I grab you some snacks from the fire truck. We always keep a stash in there in case we get delayed on a call. Is there someone who can meet you at the hospital?”

  Pouting, Delaney complied with O’Day’s instructions. She left her room but stopped short of sitting on the lounge chair. “My husband is on a fishing trip at Lake Cachuma. You might be able to reach him on the phone at the fishing shack. I’ve been trying to make contact with him ever since I got here, but I could never connect. Mavis said he called here a couple times, but she didn’t tell me at the time because I was asleep. Or so she said. Now I am beginning to think she was telling big fat lies.”

  “Maybe so.” The fireman took a tiny notebook and pencil from his chest pocket and handed them to Delaney. “If you can give me your husband’s phone number, we can see what we can do to contact him. We’ll also have an officer in Visalia swing by your house and make sure everything is secure. I’ll need your address, of course.”

  Delaney jotted down the requested information.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to contact the watch commander on the radio and get the ball rolling. I’ll be back as soon as we have a plan in place. Until then, sit tight out here on that chaise. I’ll bring you some blankets and snacks from the truck.

  “Wait a minute!” Delaney stepped back to the bare bedroom window and peered in again from the outside. Her eyes touched upon all the things she would have to leave behind. She wished she could gather the strewn manuscripts, her new Oxford cloth blouse, and her pink sunglasses. And most of all, Samuel’s little quilt. “I’m not about to leave my son’s quilt in there — the one with the dinosaurs,” she announced. “I bought it for my son at a gift shop in Three Rivers just before I came up here. Can you see it right there on the edge of the nightstand?”

  “The green and blue one?”

  “Yes, may I please have it? If I leave it here, I may never see it again. I promise I won’t ask for anything more.”

  Captain O’Day studied Delaney’s face. “Let me get it for you,” he acquiesced. With deft movements, he retrieved the quilt and examined it thoroughly before handing it over to her.

  “Why, thank you!” Delaney smiled for the first time in days. “You know what? Now I feel at least fifteen per cent better.”

  “Will you please promise me that you’ll sit down out here on the deck? I’ll be back in a few minutes with those snacks and blankets.”

  Delaney settled onto the chaise lounge and hugged the blue and green dinosaur quilt to her chest. “I’m going to have quite a story to tell Samuel about this quilt of his someday.”

  “Yes, you will.”

  When Captain O’Day returned, he unfolded the heavy wool blankets he’d brought along and tucked them around Delaney. “By the way, we’re going to have medevac you by helicopter. Right now, Mineral King Road is blocked.”

  “What happened? A rockslide?”

  “Nope. Search and rescue is there on a call. A black Land Cruiser went over a cliff sometime last night.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Chad held Delaney’s hands in both of his. “I’m never going to let you out of my sight again.”

  Delaney pouted. “In spite of everything, I think I gained some weight up on that mountain.”

  The nurse standing at the far end of Delaney's bed patted her on the foot. “You’re lucky to be alive, young lady. And your baby, too. We’re still not sure what kind of drug was in that chalice.”

  “Here, let me help you,” her husband offered. “How about another pillow?”

  “If you can raise the head of the bed just a bit –”

  “Coming right up!”

  The nurse assisted Chad with the bed then left to continue her rounds.

  A light knock reverberated from the hall side of the door. Then the heavy portal creaked as it swung open on its hinges. “Mrs. Delaney Fox?”

  Chad met the visitor before they crossed the threshold. “Good evening, sir. I’m Chad Fox, Delaney’s husband. And you are …”

  “I’m Detective Geoffrey Travis.” The middle-aged officer extended his right hand toward Chad as he entered the sterile room. His wrinkled brow shaded his sharp black eyes; he pierced Delaney's wan expression with his gaze. “Good evening, Mrs. Fox. I just want to follow up on the information you gave Captain O’Day yesterday morning.”

  “Of course.” Delaney smiled as her thoughts returned to the kind firefighter.

  Detective Travis paused to study Delaney’s reclining body. “You sure got yourself tangled up in a big mess on Mineral King Road, young lady. Why don’t you tell me how you got to The Tilted Plume in the first place?”

  Delaney smoothed her sheet and blanket over her tummy, savoring every inch of her safe child. “I have been looking for a writing teacher for a long time. A really good one. I happened to be at the public library in Visalia one day and saw a brochure for a writers’ retreat not far from home. I was amazed to find out that Mavis Beasom lived in Three Rivers and was accepting students. She’s written some really successful romance novels, you know. A whole slew of them, actually. Two of them have been made into A-list movies.” Delaney’s eyelids began to flush as tears welled up in her eyes. “Anyway, I sent the application to her by mail. It wasn’t long before I received a letter of acceptance from Miss Beasom. At the time, I couldn’t believe she would even consider taking me on as a student. After all, I’m just a nobody.”

  “Now, Delaney,” Chad countered, “that’s just not true.” He leaned over and wrapped his arm around his wife’s shoulders.

  “It’s true.” Delaney wiped her eyes and continued her story. “Anyway, Mavis and I made plans for me to come to her cabin for a few days.”

  “You talked to her on the phone?”

  “No, we communicated through letters.”

  “And you had no idea that Mineral King Road was so treacherous?” The officer’s eyes drilled into Chad’s face like he was responsible.

  “No,” Chad answered for both of them. “My family has lived in Visalia for years, but we haven’t really ventured east. Most of our vacations have been on the coast.”

  “It wouldn’t be Chad’s fault, anyway” Delaney argued. “I have a reputation for being strong willed. If I get something in my head that I want to do, there’s no stopping me. Besides, it was just a writers’ retreat. In the grand scheme of things, I’d say that sounds pret
ty innocuous.”

  “In most instances, that would be the case,” Detective Travis agreed.

  Chad squeezed Delaney’s shoulder. “I’m just happy she’s safe.”

  The officer pulled up a chair and balanced a notepad on his knees. “Well, I have some good news and some bad news. Which do you want to hear first?”

  “The good news,” Chad replied without consulting his wife.

  “Okay.” The officer turned a few pages in his notebook. “First of all, we found Grantham – or Grant as he is called outside of his coven. His backside was burned in that little accident, and he showed up at the hospital emergency room in Exeter.”

  “I had no idea he was actually got burned,” Delaney reflected. “After his cloak caught fire, he threw it off in a matter of seconds. Of course, he was naked underneath.”

  “What?” Chad blustered. “Naked? Delaney, this is the last time you are going on one of your harebrained adventures.”

  Detective Travis cleared his throat. “Mrs. Fox, do you realize you met Grant before you ever got to the retreat?”

  “I did?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. You met him on the Kaweah River Bridge.”

  “That was Grantham?” Delaney thought back to her unexpected encounter with the cowboy and his border collie on the mystical bridge. “I believe he stopped when he saw me looking over the railing … like he thought I was going to jump.”

  “Were you?” the officer probed.

  “Oh, no. Certainly not. I am so in love with my husband and my baby.” Delaney beamed at Chad. “I was just enthralled with that bridge. There is something almost magical about the East Fork thundering through that rocky chasm. The energy makes the air feel almost electric.”

  Two sharp puffs of air sounded from the officer’s nostrils. “Or just plain ominous. Mr. Fox, is your wife always so imaginative?”

  Like a good husband, Chad did not respond to the officer’s question.

  “Now that I think of it,” Delaney reminisced, “I have to admit there was a resemblance between the cowboy on the bridge and Grantham. Perhaps the cowpoke’s western hat and his full beard did a good job of covering up all the pimples on his face. At the ceremony, Grantham was clean-shaven with a fresh buzz cut. And, of course, his clothes were different.”

  “Or lack of clothes,” Chad quipped.

  Detective Travis’ expression remained stoic. “As it stands, Grant isn’t doing a whole lot of talking. His dad, who is a wealthy rancher up in the Three Rivers area, has lawyered up. I guess he was unaware of the fact that his son belonged to a coven, but that’s neither here nor there. At this juncture, we have no idea how much Grant knows about the other members or how they can be contacted.”

  “So, that’s the good news?” Chad confirmed.

  “Perhaps their refusal to be forthcoming might backfire on them,” Detective Travis predicted. “If we can’t find the other members and Grant realizes that he’s lined up to be the fall guy, he might start squealing.”

  “And the bad news?” Delaney prodded.

  The officer clenched his jaw. “You’re aware that Mavis Beasom’s vehicle was located at the bottom of a cliff, right? It was quite a fall. The distance from the road to the bottom of the canyon was around three hundred feet.”

  Delaney grimaced. “Now I feel so bad about all the awful things I said about her.”

  “I don’t understand, Mrs. Fox. Mavis did some pretty rotten things to you.”

  “But now she’s dead. And it’s wrong to say bad things about people who have passed on.”

  “Dead?” The detective blinked. “Where did you hear that?”

  “Isn’t she?” Delaney countered. “Who could survive a fall like that?”

  “That’s what the sheriff’s department is trying to determine. The Land Cruiser was located at the base of the canyon, but Miss Beasom was nowhere to be found. Nor was anyone else.”

  Chad wrinkled his chin. “That doesn’t seem quite possible.”

  "I'd say you are correct." Detective Travis tapped his fingers on his notebook. “But we have found no evidence that anyone was inside the vehicle when it went over the cliff. There were no skid marks. There were no signs that the cruiser hit anything before it went over the precipice. From the tread marks on the shoulder of the road, it looks like the Land Cruiser might have been pushed over the side of the mountain on purpose. It didn’t appear the engine was running at the time.”

  “Why would Mavis want to do that?” Delaney asked. “Only a crazy person would pull that kind of stunt — or someone who was feeling really guilty about something.”

  Detective Travis shifted in his chair. “That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

  Chad patted the top of his wife’s folded hands. “Sounds like Mavis was running from the long arm of the law. Still, it seems kind of stupid to ditch a luxury vehicle, a big cabin, and a prime piece of real estate in order to avoid prosecution for a wildfire.”

  “I think there was something else,” Delaney interjected.

  The detective shot her an interested look. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, right after the fire broke out, Mavis tried to convince her friends to hold off calling the fire department."

  "That dastardly woman!" Chad grumbled.

  "She was hoping the blaze would hit the firebreak and burn itself out. When two of the coven members, Ada and Drew, confronted her, Mavis blew a gasket. She claimed that notifying the authorities would 'ruin everything else'. I wasn’t sure what she meant.”

  “I know one thing for sure.” Detective Travis rubbed his chin.

  Delaney tilted her head. “What’s that?”

  “Mavis was serious about not wanting anyone to use her phone. She ripped it out of the wall and took it with her when she left.”

  “So, even if I'd gone back to the house that night, I would have been without a phone?”

  “I don’t care what anyone says,” Chad growled. “That woman is evil.”

  “Hopefully, she won’t get too far,” the officer said. “Tell me, Mrs. Fox … can you give me a good description of Miss Beasom?”

  Delaney pulled herself up a little higher in her hospital bed. “The first thing a person would notice about Mavis is her height. She’s at least six feet tall and thin as a garden rake. I would guess she’s probably getting close to sixty years old, but by the look of her hairstyle, she was fighting it. Miss Beasom's hair was cut in this short modern wedge with a longer tuft on top. The tuft was dyed a bright cherry red.”

  Detective Travis scribbled some notes on his pad of paper. “Anything else?”

  “Yes,” Delaney confirmed. “She wore a lot of black. In fact, when we went to an ice cream social at the Sierra View Community Church, she even wore a black witch’s cape.”

  “The community church on Sierra Highway? What were you two doing at a regular church?”

  “Well, I didn’t see any problem with it,” Delaney argued. “Miss Beasom invited me to attend way back while we were corresponding with each other. At first, I thought the coincidence was rather ironic. Her church is affiliated with the community church I attend in Visalia. To be honest, that connection made me more comfortable about signing up for the writers’ retreat in the first place."

  Chad nodded in agreement.

  "Anyway, Mavis and I went to the ice cream social on the evening I arrived at the writers’ retreat. Everyone at the church seemed to know Miss Beasom, and they were aware she was a writer. And probably even a witch. And like most church people, they were cordial to her face.”

  The detective kneaded his chin with his strong fingers. “But not behind her back?”

  “Well, let me tell you about that.” Delaney responded. “You see, Mavis left me for a few minutes to get a box of donations from her vehicle. While she was gone, one really sweet lady – Jewel was her name – told me she thought I would be ‘good for Mavis’. At the time, I had no idea what she was talking about. In retrospect, I believe she
was referring to her disapproval of Mavis Beasom’s lifestyle.”

  Detective Travis rose from his chair. “I think I had better pay a little visit to that church. They might be able to give us some information. If I can set up a meeting with the minister or this woman named Jewel, would you be able to come along, too, Mrs. Fox? It would be most helpful.”

  Chad stepped forward. “Delaney is due to be discharged from the hospital any time now. She will need at least two or three days of complete rest after that. However, if you give us a date and a time for the meeting, I will be happy to drive her to the church myself.”

  “You’re not going to let her out of your sight, are you?” the officer asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “I can’t blame you.”

  Delaney struggled to sit up straight. “Hey, wait a minute! I still have some questions.”

  Detective Travis closed his notebook. “Okay, Mrs. Fox. What do you need to know?”

  “For starters, what happened to those teeth I gave Captain O’Day – the ones I found in the fire ring?”

  “They’ve been handed over to the forensics lab. There is a sticking point, though. Making a positive match between those teeth and a person’s dental records can be a shot in the dark. Right now, we don’t have any likely dead or missing individuals — or a subject walking around minus six teeth.”

  “What about DNA tests?” Chad prodded.

  “That’s an unknown right now; we don’t know if the DNA was compromised by the fire. It all depends on the temperature. Of course, there’s a slim possibility that a profile can be gleaned from the pulp of the teeth, but that’s not something we do here in Tulare County. The samples would have to be sent away to a specialized lab. If they are able to get results, we are looking at a process that can take many months.”

  “That’s so frustrating!” Delaney complained.

  “There is a positive note,” Detective Travis said brightly. “In her hurry to vacate her house, Mavis left behind her hairbrush.”

  “And it was full of her cherry red hair?” Delaney laughed. “That might help you later on. Then again, I’m sure she’s changed her hair color by now.”