by Sharon Pape
“Tell me everything you see, even if you don’t think it could have played a part in his death. It’s our one chance before the police take over.” He handed me the flashlight and took another one from his pocket.
It was hard to see the entire front compartment without moving Ryan out of the way, which was clearly not an option. I did my best to view it from every window, every angle. I felt like I was at a movie theater straining to see the screen around the NBA player in front of me.
There was a half full to-go cup in one of the two cup holders. If there was a straw or lid, I couldn’t find it. They probably wound up under the seat from the impact of the car hitting the tree. The cup was plastic, the kind used for cold drinks, not the pressed paper used for hot drinks, since Styrofoam’s fall from grace. There was a box from a burger joint on the floor between Ryan’s feet, a partially eaten burger hanging out of it.
I looked in the back of the car on my way around to the other side. An umbrella, an ice-scraper, a Chinese takeout menu, and a pair of ratty old sneakers – things you might find in any car. I continued to the front passenger window. There was nothing on the seat. I looked down at the floorboard. I didn’t see the cell phone, until the flashlight glinted off the dark screen. I described all of this to Travis, who was either examining the ground for clues or trying not to keep staring at his friend’s body. I figured it was the latter.
I completed my circuit of the car and turned my attention to Ryan, himself. I was relieved that his eyes were closed, but my renegade mind still wondered if he’d seen death coming. When I moved the flashlight down his face, my stomach recoiled. I had to look away and take a couple of deep breaths before I could focus on him again.
Travis was instantly at my side. “Are you okay? You don’t have to go on if this is too much for you.”
“I’m good,” I managed to say without my voice wobbling. “I’ll be fine.” I had to be fine for his sake. I trained the light back on Ryan’s face, willing my stomach to stay put. There was the residue of something caked around his mouth and clotted on the front of his coat. The burger? That’s when I saw all the bloody scratches on his neck, his mouth, and his chin. Some of the scratches were so deep they were more like claw marks. Had he choked to death on the burger?
“Check out his fingernails,” Travis said.
Ryan’s left hand was hanging down between his body and the door, impossible to see. The right one lay in his lap, where I could easily see that his nails and cuticles were caked with dried blood.
“He did that to himself?” I knew the answer, but couldn’t keep the words from spilling out as my mind tried to come to terms with the horror of it. I stepped back from the car, my knees rubbery. It was a relief to look away from Ryan.
Travis put his arm around my shoulders and I leaned into him, until my legs felt like they could bear my weight again.
“How are you holding up?” I asked him.
“I don’t feel much of anything right now. Shock, I guess.”
He linked arms with me and we made our way back up the slippery hill to the road. “Come on, we’ll talk in the car.” He’d left the engine running for the headlights and the heater. It was blissfully warm inside.
“Okay,” I said. “What did you mean about it not being an accident?”
“You saw the hamburger box and the mess on his face and jacket?”
“Yes.” I’d probably take the image to my grave.
“He wasn’t eating the hamburger, Kailyn, because he’s been a committed vegetarian since he was fifteen.”
“No chance he could have slipped?”
“Not Ryan. Not once. When he was in his early twenties, he ordered vegetable soup at a restaurant. The menu didn’t mention beef stock in the description of the soup. He was sick for two days afterward. His stomach couldn’t even handle the stock anymore.”
“Could the burger have been vegetarian?” I asked to cover all the possibilities.
“No, I thought of that too. The place it came from only makes beef burgers. Like I said, there’s no way Ryan was eating that burger of his own free will. If the ME attributes his death to choking on the burger, it was no accident. It was murder. Someone force-fed him that meat.”
It took me a minute to wrap my mind around the possibility that he’d been murdered. Travis broke into my muddled thoughts. “Thank you for coming,” he said, reaching for my hand and squeezing it. “You have no idea how much it means to me. But you need to leave now so I can call the police.”
He walked me back to my car. “Let me know when you get home,” he said. “I won’t call them, until I hear from you. I don’t want to take the chance a cop on his way here might see you and wonder what you’re doing out and about at this hour. Do you remember the way back to Grand Avenue?”
“Sure,” I said, not at all sure. He had more than enough on his mind. If my spell didn’t work in reverse, I’d set my GPS to take me home.
Chapter 4
I shut the alarm on my bedside radio. I was too tired for the time to be right. I pulled up the covers, hoping to fall back to sleep, but the memories of the night flooded back into my head. Travis—he’d sent me home, but he must have been up the rest of the night with the police. They wouldn’t care that he’d been without sleep for over forty-eight hours. They would take him back to headquarters in Watkins Glen, where Detective Duggan would question him relentlessly. I grabbed my phone on the nightstand and was about to click on his number when I stopped myself. As much as I wanted to find out how he was, I didn’t want to risk waking him if he was finally asleep. I settled for texting him.
My troubled thoughts turned to Tilly. If Travis was right about how Ryan died, her prediction of another murder had come true. At least she hadn’t known the victim, location or cause of death beforehand. However, if my mother and grandmother were right, her unenviable talent might expand to include those things. Maybe Merlin knew a spell to prevent that from happening. Or maybe he would only succeed in making matters worse.
I dragged myself out of bed and down the stairs to feed Sashkatu and the band of would-be familiars I’d inherited along with the house and magick shop. Once they were settled, I took a hot shower and pulled on a sweater, jeans, boots, and a down vest. But I couldn’t seem to shake the chill in my bones. I didn’t have time to brew coffee, so I promised my stomach coffee and something more substantial from the Breakfast Bar.
As soon as Sashkatu and I walked into the shop, he made a beeline for his window ledge that was already warmed by the morning sun streaming in. I gave him fresh water and cleaned the litter box I kept in the storeroom. I was about to step through the connecting door into Tilly’s shop to say “hello,” when I heard her arguing with Merlin. I made a quick U-turn to avoid being dragged into their drama and headed for the front door and breakfast. I realized it was cowardly, but I was bone-tired and brain-fried.
The Breakfast Bar was a recent addition to New Camel. It was a mother/daughter enterprise that only served breakfast and was open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.—the hours Beth Lee’s kids were in school. Her mother, Diane Kim, was the chef. Beth ran the business end. The Bar was an immediate success with both locals and tourists. Diane was always open to suggestions for new dishes. If it was a hit, she added it to the menu and named it after its creator. My aunt Tilly was the only one I knew who didn’t like The Bar. She maintained that the women were encroaching on her territory. Logic held no sway with her. It didn’t matter that their menu was completely different from the items she served at her high teas or that psychic readings were the mainstay of how she made her living.
Beverly Rupert was walking out of The Bar as I was walking in. I nodded, counting myself lucky for missing her, until she stepped back inside to chat. “Did you hear about the reporter they found dead in his car? They say he must have lost control, because the car went off the road and slammed into a tree.” She added a theatrical sh
udder. I knew her well enough to be certain it was only for effect. And she didn’t mention the reporter’s name in an obvious attempt to scare me, to make me worry it was Travis who had died.
“The reporter was Ryan Cutler,” I said, watching the disappointment register on her face.
“Well, thank goodness it wasn’t your Travis,” she said, clapping her hand to her heart.
“Exactly. Now if you’ll excuse me, I should put in my order.” My stomach was grumbling for an egg and cheese Panini.
“Of course, of course,” she said. “Nice to see you.”
I should have said, “Nice to see you too,” but the words seemed stuck to my tongue. Instead I wished her a good day. I returned to my shop, breakfast in hand, and sat down at the desk to eat it. Sashkatu opened one eye and sniffed the air. Though he was generally a fan of eggs, that morning they couldn’t compete with the sunlight. Seconds later he was snoring away.
I was finishing the last bite of Panini when Tilly marched into my shop from Tea and Empathy. Her cheeks were nearly as red as her hair, which meant she was either embarrassed or furious. There was nothing ambiguous about her facial expression though—fury won by a landslide.
“Do you know what your wizard friend did?” she demanded as if I were somehow responsible for his crimes.
“Aunt Tilly,” I said evenly, “how would I know? You’re the psychic in the family.”
“Of course I am. The question was purely rhetorical.”
“What did Merlin do now?” I asked, dreading the answer. He already had an impressive list of priors, each more novel than the last.
“He wantonly destroyed one of my favorite muumuus. And they don’t come cheaply. It doesn’t seem to matter to Evelyn that we’ve been friends since the fourth grade, she’s never given me a penny’s discount.” It was a complaint I was treated to every time she received the seamstress’s bill. And it was likely to continue, because Evelyn had created the pattern for Tilly and her work was unassailable, even if her pricing wasn’t.
“Why would Merlin do something like that?” I asked to refocus her on Merlin and the tale of the ravaged muumuu. When she was upset, she tended to ramble off topic. Before she could answer me, Merlin came through the connecting door, the contested garment rolled up in his hand.
“Has Tilly told you about my banner?” he asked, his chest puffed out with pride.
“Merlin,” I said sternly, “you can’t take what isn’t yours just because you want it.”
“And you certainly have no right to ruin it!” Tilly added.
“I had a far better use for it,” he said. “Does that not count for anything?”
“No!” we said in unison.
“Aha—so there’s a conspiracy afoot. Mayhap, young Kailyn, you should see the evidence before you choose with whom to align yourself.” He unfurled the banner and pulled it taut. There was no denying that he’d done a fine job of it, given his limited resources. The banner depicted a highly stylized, golden lion rampant on a field of emerald green muumuu. Of course it no longer bore any resemblance to Tilly’s dress, but only the three of us would ever know the truth of it. Unless Tilly got chatty.
Both Merlin and my aunt were looking at me, clearly awaiting my verdict on the matter. “As beautiful as the banner is, Merlin, you stole what belonged to Tilly and nothing can justify that. You should have asked her permission or requested she buy you some fabric for your project.”
“I loved the way that color set off my red hair,” Tilly said, still bemoaning her loss.
“I bet Evelyn can find more of that fabric and make you a brand new one,” I said to console her. “You could even have her add some sequins or beads to the neckline this time.”
“Oh my, that would be stunning, wouldn’t it?” Tilly said, brightening. “I think I’ll give her a call right now.” She headed back to her shop with a lighter step than when she’d arrived.
“All’s well that ends well,” Merlin declared triumphantly. But he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to follow her back to Tea and Empathy. He ambled around my shop for a few minutes, picking up this and looking at that without any apparent interest.
“Everything okay?” I asked, though it didn’t take a psychic to figure out what was bothering him.
“Ah…do you think…I mean… Dear child, might I impose on your good graces to remain here a while longer?”
I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. “Is it my aunt?”
“There is a chance, a wee chance, that sweet Matilda may harbor some lingering resentment.”
“In that case,” I said, “you may want to hang out here until the new muumuu arrives.”
Chapter 5
When I opened Abracadabra the next morning, I still hadn’t heard from Travis. By then I was better rested, but starved for information. It wasn’t likely that Duggan threw him in jail without probable cause. And although Travis had to be fifty miles past exhausted, how long could he sleep? If he didn’t call or answer my texts by noon, I intended to call him.
I was helping my elderly neighbor, Maddy Nelson, find a cure for her indigestion, when the door chimes jingled. I poked my head out of the aisle to tell the newcomer I’d be right with them. Seeing Travis there did more to lift my spirits than St. John’s Wort or Golden Root ever could. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” I called as if he were just another customer. I preferred to keep my private life private. It made me a troglodyte of sorts in the age of uncensored social media, but through the millennia, my family has always needed to conduct their lives differently from the rank and file of society. Our ancestors learned the hard way to stay in the background and exercise caution in order to survive.
I went back to Maddy and her indigestion. She was squinting at the label on one of the jars I’d pointed out, looking overwhelmed. “There are too many choices,” she said, turning to me. “Ginger, chamomile, peppermint. I don’t even know what fennel is. How’s a body to choose? Maybe you could just choose one for me?” she asked with a hopeful smile.
“I have a better idea. I have samples of them. Brew one at a time into a tea. If the first one doesn’t work or you don’t like it, go on to another one, until you find the one that’s right for you.”
Maddy’s eyebrows drew together. “I’m afraid buying the three samples would be too costly. Like those travel size toiletries that always seem to cost more. I’m on a fixed income, you know.”
“The samples are free,” I told her. “How else can I expect my customers to decide what to buy?”
“Well, aren’t you a thoughtful young woman,” she said. “Morgana and Bronwen would be proud. What a pity they’re gone.”
Not as gone as you might think, I said to myself. “Give me a minute and I’ll grab those samples for you.” I’d been spending the shop’s slow hours making up sample packets of the various products and remedies I sold. The idea had immediately caught on. Everyone loved being able to try things out before purchasing a larger amount. As word of my sample policy spread through town and into surrounding areas, I’d noticed a definite uptick in business. People I’d never seen in my shop were venturing in, taking samples and, in most cases, coming back to buy more.
I found Maddy at the counter, making small talk with Travis. She thanked me again and slipped the sample packets into her purse. “This is the place to come if anything ails you,” she said to Travis. “Don’t be put off by the magicky decor and stuff. It’s just for show.” I saw her glance down at Travis’s hand before adding, “And if you happen to be in the market for a lady friend, you won’t find a finer one than Kailyn Wilde.” I felt the heat rise from my neck to my cheeks. I hadn’t blushed like that since my early teens. Maddy’s remark made me wonder what I’d done with the spell my mother created for the problem back then.
“I promise to keep that in mind,” Travis said, escorting her to the door and holding it open for her.
“I was going to call,” he said, coming back to me, “but then I decided I’d rather see you up close and personal.”
“It happens I’m a big fan of up close and personal.”
“I’m glad we agree.” He put his hands on my waist and kissed me, but it seemed perfunctory, as if his mind was somewhere else.
I pulled back. “I know you’ve got a lot going on with your friend’s sudden death, but I get the feeling it’s more than that. What am I missing?”
“Can the Q and A wait until later?” he asked. I was taken aback by his tone. He’d never been so short and dismissive with me. My reaction must have been written on my face, because he immediately tried to make amends. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound like that. I swear I’ll answer all your questions, but there’s something I need to take care of first and it can’t wait. To be honest, I came to ask for your help.”
Not the best way to go about it, I thought, but I held my tongue until I could figure out what was going on with him. In any case, I didn’t want to be excluded from whatever he was up to. “Sure,” I said, “count me in.”
“Once you hear what I want you to do, you may change your mind.”
“Okay then, talk me out of it.”
“Ryan was renting a month by month in Watkins Glen to investigate some story in the area that had him all revved up. He was like a blood hound that’s picked up the scent of trouble. After Duggan let me go, I ran by his place. Unfortunately there was already yellow tape across the door and a cop on duty.”
“If Ryan’s death was accidental, do they have a right to search his home?” I asked.
“No. All they can do at this point is protect the scene in case the ME finds evidence of criminal involvement. If he does, Duggan can get a court order to tear the place apart for clues and the first thing his guys will take is Ryan’s laptop. I need to get in there before that happens and find his thumb drive.”
