No Rest for The Wiccan

by Madelyn Alt

  “This isn’t a visit from the spirit realm, Marcus. It’s different somehow. And that’s the part that I don’t understand. All I know is that I really, really, really feel like I don’t like Libby. Yes, that’s it. She’s not nice, not nice, not nice at all.”

  Marcus cocked his head at me. The odd phrasing hadn’t passed by unnoticed. “Are you all right, Maggie?”

  No, I wasn’t all right. I didn’t like Libby. She was a mean, mean girl. She said bad things, and she did bad things. Bad things to pigs in blankets.

  Mean, mean, jelly bean, kissed a toad, thinks she’s a queen . . .

  What was wrong with me? I shook my head to clear it. All of a sudden, I opened my eyes wide and stared at him. “She said he didn’t have any phobias.”

  “Who did?”

  “Libby did. Tom asked her why Joel would have been seeing the doctor out of Fort Wayne. She told him that Joel wasn’t that kind of guy, that he didn’t have any phobias.”

  “And?”

  “The night when the dummy was hung from the conveyer, Joel said . . .” What did he say? I struggled, trying to remember. “He said that he didn’t do ladders. No, that’s not right. He didn’t so much as say it as . . . as infer it. Thinking back now, I really think that’s what he meant. But when Frank and Libby were arguing, Frank said that he hadn’t seen Joel on a ladder in a long time, and she asked him whether Joel had ever come right out and said that he was afraid of heights, and Frank said no. So did Libby not know? Is that even possible? Why would she say that if she did know?”

  Marcus frowned. “Maybe she didn’t want it to be true. Maybe she really didn’t know. Maybe he hid it from her. Maybe she was doing what she thought was right, trying to preserve his memory.”

  But Libby was a smart woman. She would have known as well as we did that answering a question posed by a police officer was not the time to be stretching the truth in order to protect someone else, dead or alive. So we were back to . . .

  “Do you think he had hid it from her?” Marcus suggested.

  “Through seven years of marriage? I just can’t see that happening, can you? ‘Honey, can you clean out the gutters? We have trees growing out of them, and while I like greenery, I think it’s going to become a problem.’ How long do you think he could stall before she put her foot down, realistically? Good grief, she might be the most un-demanding wife in the world, and I’d give it a year. Tops.”

  He laughed. “I guess you’re right.”

  “She had to have known, or at least suspected. She had to have. So why would she cover that up?”

  We were quiet a moment, each lost in our own thoughts. I looked up at him shyly. “You know, it’s funny. I didn’t know that you were a spirit medium, until that night at Mel’s. It surprised me, to realize how little I do know about you. Do you . . . do you feel Joel Turner here?”

  A quizzical glance from him in return. “You mean, do I feel his spirit here in an active sense? A haunting?”

  I nodded.

  Now it was his turn to close the world out in an astral sense, to allow the energies to speak to him. It was something I was only now learning to do, and could only hope one day to be as competent at it as he seemed to be. “I can sense his energy here in a . . . protective sense, but that’s all.” What he said next surprised me. “There are others here, though. Watchful eyes. Lost, some of them. Wanderers.”

  “Really?” I glanced all around me. “I haven’t felt them.”

  “There are always spirits, Maggie-sweet. Sometimes they’re more background presences, and at other times, they want center stage. Sometimes they’re the same ones all the time, and other times different ones pop in at different times for a visit. Some are active and engage with us, and others are more like memories of traumatic times. But there’s always something.” He paused a moment before adding, “The weird thing about that is that I think the activity is increasing all the time.”

  His endearment made me smile, but his message did not. I pushed it away, not ready to think about it too much.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “We’re not getting anything done here tonight. Maybe Libby Turner was right. Maybe we should put this off for another time.”

  I let my breath out with a sigh. It wasn’t what I’d wanted to do, but I could see the sense in it. “You’re right. We’re just going to have to come back when I can focus. I’m sorry, Marcus. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  He squeezed my hand. “Don’t worry about it. No one is on all the time, and you don’t have to be.”

  “Should I go remind Tom about what Joel had said that night?” I wondered aloud.

  “If you think it’s important, then yes. Absolutely.” And then, “Would you like me to go with you?”

  It was one of the things I loved best about Marcus. He made a great friend, always supportive, always concerned.

  Still, I answered, “No, but thank you,” because I knew Tom wouldn’t like it.

  “All right. I’ll go pack up our stuff. I’ll leave Minnie here with your car, so she’ll be out of the way and won’t get trampled by my clodhopper feet.”

  “Good idea. Not that you have clodhopper feet. Unless you like that description, that is.” I wiggled my fingers for her. “I’ll be right back, sweetpea. You be good.”

  I headed off to find Tom. He’d disappeared from view, but I thought I knew which building he’d gone into. The door on the big storage barn was open a little, so I stuck my head in. “Tom?” Silence and darkness met my query. “Frank? Anyone in here?”

  Nothing.

  “Oooookay. Not in there, I guess.”

  Hmm, where else could he be?

  I walked around a bit, looking this way and that. Finally I found him poking about around the livestock shuttle, the fenced, narrow gateway that allowed livestock to be loaded without injury, to them or to anyone else, and in a controlled fashion, from a holding pen to a waiting truck for transport. The unprocessed livestock, that is. That would be nonslaughtered to all the tenderfoots out there, although I have to say, unprocessed sounds a whole lot more appealing.

  “There you are,” I said, trying hard to keep my voice light and my energy neutral. We were already on shaky ground this evening; push any more buttons and it might just end up like a funhouse ride on steroids, and my knees were already feeling like jelly as it was. “I wanted to let you know that we’ve decided to go. Neither one of us is really in the mood, and we’re not getting anything done anyway.”

  He nodded somberly. “Leaving together, are you?”

  I was not going to rise to any bait that was offered. “No, I have to head to Mel’s for the evening. At least until her husband, Greg, gets home,” I answered quietly. I paused, wondering whether I should go ahead and ask or give him his space, but in the end I decided to live dangerously. “Will you call me later?”

  The faint, rugged lines on his face relaxed somewhat. “Yeah.” Which made me feel better, until he said, “Just as soon as I get my paperwork done.” Because I knew what that meant. If a phone call would be forthcoming, it would be brief and distracted, or else it would come after I’d fallen asleep and would go straight to voice mail.

  Welcome to my so-called life.

  Not that there was a damned thing I could do about it but suffer unless one of us got our priorities straight.

  “Making any headway?” I asked him. “I saw you poking about.”

  “Oh, you did, did you? Always the curious one.” He shook his head at me. “I’m not sure, actually. I just can’t see this as accidental. I’ve taken some more samples of what I’m positive are drops of blood. Small and far between, but still there. I can’t blame the guys for missing them, really. They were so far outside the normal range for an accident of that type, it’s no wonder. At first glance, it did seem like accidental was the likely way to go. No one was looking for anything more.”

  “You say drops of blood. You mean, as in a trail?”

  “Maybe. They’re far enough
apart it’s hard to tell for sure, but . . . maybe. I just found another over this way. If it turns out to be Joel’s . . .”

  I felt the cold breath of Truth with a Capital T raising the hairs at the nape of my neck. “It is.” I knew it as sure as he was standing there next to me.

  He looked at me. “Then I think things are going to change very quickly.”

  I nodded. “I probably shouldn’t say anything . . . I know you’re on top of everything, and I know you don’t need my help . . .”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. That’s the way it should be, but you always seem to have a pretty good idea what’s going on. Even when you do try to keep your nose clean.” He winked to soften the impact of his words, and I knew he was trying to make up for earlier.

  “Well . . . it was what Libby had said about Joel, when you asked her about the doctor. Just before Eddie shouted out and interrupted everyone’s train of thought?”

  “She said that Joel didn’t have any phobias, that he wasn’t the kind of man to be afraid of anything, and thought maybe the whole thing was a mistake.”

  “Right. But do you remember the night that the dummy was found hanging from way up there?”

  “Yeah. Of course. What about it?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it, and the more I think about it, the more I think I’m right. Right before he worked the conveyer system to help Jensen get the dummy down, Joel said, ‘I don’t do . . .’, and turned away, almost like he was embarrassed. I think he was about to say that he doesn’t do ladders, but he stopped himself. Remember?”

  He stared at me, drew his brows together in concentration. “You’re right. He did say that. So, either Libby Turner didn’t know of her husband’s condition, or—”

  “Or she’s trying to hide her husband’s condition. For whatever reason.” I nodded as he chewed this over.

  “Frank’s still here, isn’t he?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “I think I should tell you, Frank also shared his concerns with me about Joel being on that ladder in the first place. Working with Joel and being his brother, I guess the evidence of a fear of heights would be pretty hard to hide. Frank was convinced that Joel would never have been on that ladder, and it appears that Joel actually confirmed that for us without a doubt. But . . . did Joel reveal his fear to the world? Or did he hide it? Who knew about it and who didn’t?”

  “Maybe Dr. Dorffman can answer those questions.”

  “I’ve got a call in to Dorffman’s office, but I haven’t heard back yet. I’ll subpoena the records if I have to, but I’m hoping that I won’t need to go that far, given the circumstances.”

  “I think you need to talk to Frank again.”

  “Agreed. Eddie kind of broke up the party.”

  Don’t like pigs in blankets . . .

  “Well, let’s go find him. Frank, I mean.”

  We caught up with Frank by Barn Number 15. He had switched the long storage barn’s lights on and was peering inside, his gaze traveling over every inch of the closely packed pallets of fertilizer being held there. He turned when he heard us approaching. “Oh, hello there. Have you seen Eddie?” Frank asked. “I swear I’ve been looking for him for more’n fifteen minutes. Libby’s gonna have my hide if she finds out I wasn’t with him every single second of the evening. She wants me to stay here if he’s going to be here.”

  “No, we haven’t seen Eddie. Frank, listen. There’s something I need to ask you, and I need you to be as truthful with me as you can.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Who knew that Joel was afraid of heights?”

  Frank looked surprised. He took a deep breath. “Not many, I guess. He didn’t make a fuss about it. He never really admitted it even to me, but I could see it. You don’t work side by side with your brother and not realize something like that. I’ve been thinking and thinking about that night, and I can’t come up with one single reason why Joel would have been up on that silo. Not one. He had a near miss on a ski trip on his honeymoon that took the daredevil right outta him.”

  More confirmation, crystal clear: An accident of this nature, for Joel, was impossible. He would never have put himself into such a situation.

  “How good do you think he was at hiding it?”

  “Pretty good. Joel was proud. Something like that, he viewed as a kind of weakness. He didn’t like to be weak.”

  Suddenly I was seeing Libby’s lie in a different light. Maybe it wasn’t a lie after all. Maybe she just didn’t know. Could that be? I’d wondered before how she could be married to the man and not know . . . but maybe I had been viewing their situation through eyes and opinions too much my own. I’d rather save a penny than hire someone else to do what I could do myself. The Turners would have had the means and the incentive to hire things done. People with money often don’t consider home upkeep to be worth their time and effort. Would Libby even notice that Joel stayed off ladders and away from high places if he contracted people for painting, for cleaning, for repairs? Of course, Noah hadn’t contradicted her either . . .

  “So maybe Libby didn’t know. What about your brother?” I blurted out my thoughts without even meaning to. “Noah, I mean. Did he know about Joel’s affliction?”

  Now it was Frank’s turn to frown as he wondered what I was getting at. I didn’t even know myself. “I don’t know. Like I said, Joel was pretty closedmouthed about it all. And he wasn’t exactly the kind of man who let a lot of people in. He didn’t have the time. All of his time was reserved for this place. This feed mill was his life, outside of his marriage to Libby, of course.”

  Of course.

  “So what do you think he was doing up there?” Tom asked him.

  Frank met him, stare for stare. “I think someone forced the issue. Oh, don’t ask me how. Joel was a big man. You both seen him. Weren’t many people out there who could have made him do anything he didn’t want to do. But you asked what I thought, so I told you.”

  “Cullins?”

  “Ol’ Bart? Sheeeeit.” Frank shook his head. “Now I don’t know how Libby got that into her head, but . . . I’ve known Bart for years. My whole life, really. He knew our dad, way back when I was knee high to a june bug. Now, he might be a hothead, and he might get his balls in a twist from time to time—er, sorry about that,” he said, eyeing me with a hint of embarrassment coloring his sun-roughened cheeks. “He’s just stubborn enough to boycott the feed mill here, maybe even cart his grain to the next county—which is what it would take, since Joel bought and closed all the others. But do I think he’d ever do anything like this? No way in hell. For one thing, Bart has arthritis. Knuckles the size of walnuts. No way he could manage that ladder any better than Joel.”

  Which left us pretty much . . . nowhere.

  “Is the office still open, Frank? I’d like to take a look at the desk calendar that Maggie saw in there.”

  “Sure. I can’t find Eddie anyway. Looks like I’m going to have to do a complete search and lockdown, building by building.” He sighed.

  We walked back to the office, where Marcus was waiting for us. He kept his cool around Tom, his expression held admirably neutral, I thought, despite his professed dislike.

  “You haven’t seen Eddie, have you?” Frank asked Marcus.

  Marcus thought about it a moment. “You know, I think I did see him, but he was going so fast, I couldn’t even tell you for sure.”

  “That’s Eddie for ya,” Frank said with a rueful chuckle. “He’s a slippery one. He’s probably off chasing after that big tomcat he loves so much.”

  Marcus looked at me. “Are you ready, then, Mags?”

  I shook my head. “In a second. We’re going to take a look at something in the office. You can—you can go on ahead, if you want to, Marcus.”

  Marcus’s gaze touched on Tom, then flicked away. “I’ll wait for you.”

  I thought I could hear Tom grinding his teeth next to me, but I decided it would be best to pretend I didn’t.


  Inside the blissfully cool office, Frank flicked on the overhead fluorescents. Once they had blinked into commission, I walked straight over to the desk I knew to be Joel’s.

  The desk calendar was gone.

  I frowned. “It was right here,” I said, tapping on the desktop in front of the lamp. “A notebook-style calendar, flipped open to the month. It was pushed up out of the way beneath the desk lamp that night. I knocked papers off the desk . . .”

  Frank frowned, too, remembering. “It should still be there, then. We haven’t touched anything here. No one really had the heart to . . . we were just trying to keep things as normal as possible. We should have closed the feed mill down for a few days. That would have made more sense now, I guess.”

  He started lifting things off the desk, shuffling things, digging through drawers, but the notebook calendar was nowhere to be found. “I guess Libby or Noah could have moved it, but I don’t know why they would,” he said. The frown was still there on his face, but now it seemed to be filled with worry more than irritation. “Everything else seems to be here.”

  The dummy was burned, the desk calendar was missing. And none of this made any sense. Why was it we kept running into roadblocks no matter which way we turned?

  Finally, Tom stood back and put his hands on his hips. “Well, that’s that, I guess.” He took out his ever-present flipbook. “I’ll make a note to ask Mrs. Turner about it tomorrow.”

  Frank nodded, but I could tell he was still troubled. We all walked slowly from the office and gathered in front of it. Marcus had his back to us, leaning up against his bike and facing the rising moon with his face lifted. I didn’t even know if he’d noticed us.

  “Thanks, Frank, for showing me the office, even though it didn’t net us what we wanted. I think I’m done for now. I’ll call your sister-in-law and let her know.”