by Sharon Pape
“Thanks,” he said, staring straight ahead, his foot heavy on the accelerator. I looked at the speedometer. We were barreling along at nearly twice the posted speed limit. I didn’t say anything, afraid to distract him. Instead I pulled out my cell phone and called my aunt. I reached her at home in a whirlwind of baking for back to back teas the next day.
She answered the phone with a wary, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Why are you asking?”
“Another death,” she said with a sigh. “It crept into my mind hours ago and even my baking marathon hasn’t dislodged it.”
Sadly I’d have to confirm her prediction, but that could wait until I got back home. “I was hoping you could open Abracadabra for me even if it’s just for a few hours. Travis has to get to the site of some breaking news and can’t drop me off.”
“Not to worry,” Tilly said. “The last batch of scones will be done in ten minutes, and then I’ll scurry right over there. It’ll be a nice break in my day.” Not only did she try to help whenever possible, but she always made it sound as though I was doing her a favor. “It’ll be good for Merlin too. The man’s been staring at one screen or another since his eyes opened this morning.”
“You’re the best,” I said.
She chuckled. “An easy title to win, since I’m all you’ve got.”
Chapter 17
We arrived at a mobile home in the middle of nowhere. If you took away the police cars, the ambulance, forensic unit and coroner’s vans, the yellow police tape and the four news vehicles with their crews, there was little else to see. The only view from the trailer’s windows would have been dead, matted vegetation and winter-bare trees. The occasional fir provided the only pop of color in the dreary landscape. The mobile home was old, the kind you’d see in movies of the 1940s or 50s. It must have looked sharp when it was new, sparkling white with turquoise trim. Now the white was the color of nicotine-stained teeth and the turquoise was faded and chipped like a bad manicure. The trailer was unhitched from an old black pickup that appeared to be equal parts metal and rust. Whoever resided there, did so without benefit of a water or electrical hookup. The thought of living under such conditions made my skin crawl.
Travis stopped the car as close to his network’s van as he could, without mowing down a couple of newscasters and cameramen. He threw the car into park and jumped out, without a word to me. Was I expected to remain in the car? Did the police tolerate the journalists’ presence, but draw the line at anyone else who happened to be along for the ride? I debated getting out and testing the waters, but decided to wait a bit and see how things played out. Ten very slow minutes ticked by. Travis was standing with a younger reporter, who I presumed was Stafford. Neither of them looked happy, but Stafford seemed more disappointed than anything. He’d probably raced to the scene believing this was going to be his first break.
I noticed a young man standing between the trailer and the police line corralling the reporters. He was wearing jeans, a parka, and hiking boots. There was a knapsack on the ground at his feet. Had he come upon the cabin during a hike, caught the smell of decay, and called the police?
The trailer door opened and the victim’s body was wheeled out in a black body bag that reminded me of the trash bags people fill with leaves and debris in the fall. No one ran after the gurney, distraught and sobbing. If the victim had family or friends, they hadn’t heard about his passing or didn’t care. Detective Duggan came out of the trailer, followed by Paul Curtis, both looking grim and official. The more time Paul spent with the detective, the more he was adopting his expressions and mannerisms. I doubted he was even aware of it.
Travis and the other reporters shouted questions at the two as they emerged from the trailer. Duggan stopped abruptly in his tracks and rounded on them. Curtis, who’d been at his heels, crashed into him, knocking them both off balance. They teetered back and forth on the brink of falling as if they were learning a new dance move. After a performance lasting several critical seconds, they both managed to stay upright. The detective cast his displeasure on Curtis, then glared at the media as if they too were to blame for the impromptu vaudeville act.
“A middle-aged man by the name of Henry Lomax was discovered dead of multiple stab wounds inside this trailer,” Duggan said. “We need to let the ME do his job. Until his report is ready, I have no further comment.” Despite his statement, the reporters kept throwing questions at them, Stafford as vocal as the rest. Travis abstained, loping back to the car instead. “It’s important to know when to advance and when to retreat,” he’d once told me. This was plainly not the time to antagonize the detective. He wasn’t free to say anything more.
“I can take you home before I head back to the station for the evening news,” he said, spinning the wheel in a tight U-turn. Ten minutes passed before I surfaced from my thoughts. Ten minutes without a word from Travis. “Stafford didn’t seem thrilled to see you,” I said to break the silence.
“He’s hungry and he sees me as easy prey. That’s why I had to get down there. I’m becoming a household name in the immediate viewing area, but I’m still building my brand.” So he was worried about his career. Boy, could I be dense sometimes! Although he’d never mentioned his career concerns to me, he was a man and men aren’t big on talking about those things. Especially when they’re trying to impress a woman. I may not be Tilly, but I should have realized what was going on. “You’re definitely a household name in my house,” I said to tease him into a lighter mood.
He gave me a wink. “You’re biased, because you get perks. It would be exhausting to try to promote myself that way. Maybe if I were younger…”
“Don’t even think about it,” I said. The air in the car already felt lighter and easier to breathe. “I knew the dead guy,” I said, causing Travis to look at me in surprise. “I guess knew is stretching the definition. It was more like everyone around here knew about him. His hobby was setting fires.”
“You’re kidding—an arsonist? Did he ever do time?” Travis asked.
“From what I remember, he got off once or twice. But then he set a fire that killed a man. Even then I don’t recall him being gone for very long. All the kids at school called him Hermit Henry and made up horror stories about him.”
“Assuming his death is part of the same string of murders we’re investigating, it’s awfully soon after Ryan was killed,” Travis said. “Maybe the killer knows we’re on his trail and he’s feeling pressed for time. That could mean he has a specific agenda to get through.”
“And up until Henry, all the deaths were different,” I pointed out. “This is the second stabbing. It seems like the killer didn’t take the time to plan this murder properly.”
“I think you’re right,” Travis said. “He’s rushing to finish his mission, whatever it is. Maybe he’ll get sloppy and start making mistakes.”
“Unfortunately it’s also brought the police back into the investigation. They brushed off Ryan’s death as accidental, but they can’t do that with a stabbing.”
“Hey, they aren’t cherries if they don’t have pits,” Travis said dryly.
I laughed. “I never heard that one before.”
“That’s because I made it up. In my line of work, you have to be good on your feet.”
Travis deposited me at my shop a few hours before closing time. I didn’t expect to see Sashkatu on his ledge, snoring away. I hadn’t asked my aunt to go to my house and bring him along, because I was concerned that he’d give her a hard time. He was always moody when I left him home and he hates being in a car. But Tilly being Tilly, she wouldn’t consider it optional.
I found her behind the counter, chatting with a local acquaintance who’d never stopped in before. The middle-aged woman was holding one of our large totes with her purchases. Tilly was a great sales lady. It was the rare person who could resist her open, embracing personality. She could chat a bal
d man into buying shampoo for dyed hair. Not that she would, unless he really deserved some comeuppance.
Her latest conquest thanked her for all her help, nodded at me and left the shop with a bounce to her step. “There were two other customers,” Tilly said, coming out from behind the counter. “And they bought even more.” She always sounded amazed by her own sales prowess.
I hugged her and sent her home to rest her feet. After hours of baking and covering my shop, she had to be suffering. “Not to worry,” she said, “I’ll have Merlin give me one of his magickal foot rubs.” I let her go without asking for more details. Some things are better left unsaid.
In the hours that remained, only one more person came in. He was big and broad shouldered, wearing a battered leather jacket open over a T-shirt with a skull motif. Tattoos peeked out of both sleeves of his jacket and from the neck of his tee. He was wearing jeans and combat boots and carrying a biker’s helmet under his left arm. His hair was spiked and the stubble on his cheeks had the look of a permanent two-day growth. Tilly referred to men like him as biker dudes.
“How you doin’?” he asked before I could greet him.
“I’m well, thanks. How are you?”
“Good, good,” he said, nodding like a bobble-head doll as he gave the shop the once over. He turned back to me. “I was just passing through, you know? And the name of your shop hooked me in.”
“Are you interested in magick?” I asked him.
“If you’re talkin’ magic like in magic shows, nah, except for when I was kid. Now if there was such a thing as real magick, sure—I’d be all over it, who wouldn’t be?”
I laughed. “True enough.”
“So what is it you have goin’ on here exactly?” he asked as he started browsing down the first aisle.
I raised my voice so he could hear me. “Natural products for what ails you, beauty aids for the skin and hair, candles for aroma therapy…”
He exited the aisle at the other end and instead of going down the next one, he headed back to me, clearly not interested enough to finish his self-tour. “It’s quirky, cute,” he said, words that sounded odd coming from a biker dude’s mouth.
He shifted the helmet from his left arm to his right like he was settling in for a while. “New Camel’s definitely small-town America. I’ll bet you know every soul and every rumor makin’ the rounds.”
If I’d been a dog, my ears would have pricked. For someone just passing through, someone who’d walked into my shop on a whim, why was he so interested in my acquaintances? It might be idle conversation, but I was investigating a potential string of murders and I couldn’t afford to dismiss any offhand remark by a stranger. “You’d be surprised,” I said, morphing out of casual shopkeeper mode and into wary investigator in a split second. “My shop and this whole town are geared to the tourist trade. I do know many of the locals, but certainly not all of them. And if you’re talking about Watkins Glen, I probably know less than thirty percent of the residents there. Are you from a big city like New York?” Two can play the question game.
“I travel a lot,” he said, his eyes flitting around me for someplace to land other than my face. He spotted Sashkatu on the window ledge and grinned, showing off perfect white teeth. A man of the highways and byways who flossed and brushed regularly. “Cool detail, the cat,” he said. “What do they call the cats that help witches?”
“I think you mean ‘familiars.’”
“Yeah, that’s it.” He picked up a candle from one of the little display tables near the counter, turned it over, sniffed it, and put it back down. “I stopped in Watkins Glen to grab a burger for lunch. Everyone was talkin’ about the guy who was found dead in his mobile home. I heard some folks say he deserved whatever he got. Guess he wasn’t liked much.”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”
“You don’t expect to hear stuff like that up here. In a city, yeah, but here in quiet-ville?”
“There are bad people everywhere. For all we know, the killer was just some guy passing through,” I said pointedly. He looked me squarely in the eye, and I had a smile all ready for him.
“A waitress was makin’ a wager with the guy at the next table,” he continued after a moment. “She bet the ‘Wilde girl’ in New Camel would catch the killer before the cops again. You know who that is?”
“I’m Kailyn Wilde,” I said, pretty sure he already knew that, since he was standing in my shop.
“You really that good at findin’ criminal types?”
I shrugged. “People like to exaggerate. I’ve probably just been lucky. Right time, right place, you know.” If he was involved in crime, murder specifically, there was no sense in giving him reason to eliminate me first.
“Nah, I’m mostly in the wrong place at the worst time,” he said chuckling at his own wit. He glanced at his watch. “I gotta hit the road. Good talkin’ to you, Miss Wilde. You stay safe.”
“I intend to,” I said. Over the years, my family and I had dealt with every sort of person, but not one of them had left me feeling as unsettled as this guy. I breathed a whole lot easier after he walked out and I heard the rumble of his motorcycle fade into the distance.
Chapter 18
The next day, before going to my shop, I stopped at the Dorothy Tippin Library. It was located one block off Main Street in the old Dutch Colonial Dorothy had bequeathed to the town for that purpose back in the 1950s. According to my grandmother, when the library was named after its patron, there wasn’t a single objection, which in our town was akin to a small miracle. Having been a woman of insight as well as foresight, my grandmother’s words, the bequest included funds for converting the house into a library. On the first floor, walls were removed to create a large open area with ample room for shelving units and a circulation desk. In more recent years a bank of computers was also installed. The second floor was off limits to anyone but staff. It held a small kitchen area and additional storage to accommodate the overflow of materials from the first floor.
I went directly to the circulation desk where Donna De Marco was working. When I was in middle school, I’d volunteered at the library over a couple of summers and we’d developed a nice rapport. “Kailyn!” she said, coming out from behind the desk to embrace me. “One of the wonderful folks I don’t see as much, since computers have taken over the world.”
“Guilty,” I said, sheepishly. “Life gets busy and we forget simple pleasures.”
She smiled. “Like the smell of old books. You used to love camping out in the stacks and searching for what you called ‘treasure.’”
The memory glowed in my mind. The slightly musty smell could instantly whisk me back to my childhood in the way an old song could. “Whenever I found a book I hadn’t read from one of my favorite mystery series, it did feel like I’d discovered a treasure.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” she said. “But I’m sure you didn’t stop in just to chat about the past. How can I help you today?”
“I’m actually here to try to help you if I can.”
Her forehead wrinkled and for the first time I noticed she was no longer the young woman of my childhood. “That sounds cryptic,” she said. “I guess you’re still a fan of mysteries.”
I laughed. “Some things never change.” I told her about my eccentric cousin, Merlin. I’d repeated the story so often that it was beginning to feel like the truth. “Would you know if he booked the library for a meeting on Sunday?”
“Not as far as I know, but he might have talked to Abigail. Let me check the computer to be sure.” She went behind the desk and tapped at the computer keys for several seconds. She looked up, shaking her head. “No one’s reserved the library for anything on Sunday.”
It was too soon for a sigh of relief. “It’s possible he thinks he can just show up, with half the town in tow.”
“I’m afraid you’ve lost me,” s
he said. I explained about Merlin parading around with his sign. “You’re kidding. I saw him that day, but I didn’t know who he was and I definitely didn’t see the back of his sign.”
“I’ll do my best to shut him down, but I wanted you to be aware, just in case.”
She chuckled. “Well, if nothing else, it will shake things up a bit around here.” I was reminded of one of the reasons I loved her—she was unflappable, the exact opposite of the prim, tight-lipped head librarian who’d preceded her.
“If he out-maneuvers me and walks in here, I’d really appreciate it if you could hold off calling the police, until I have a chance to wrangle him myself.”
“I’ll do what I can,” she said, “but with cell phones these days, any patron in the library can call 9-1-1.”
And there was my challenge in a nutshell: keeping a famous sorcerer from the Middle Ages a secret in the Age of Technology.
Back in my shop, I had just enough time to make a phone call before opening. Since the day Lolly mentioned Caleb Winston, I’d wanted to speak to him. I had questions only he might be able to answer and my window for asking them was getting shorter by the day. I looked online and found the town historian listed along with the other town officials. Next to the names, there were extensions to use after you reached Town Hall. Next to Caleb Winston’s name was an entirely different number with the notation that it was his home phone. At his advanced age, and with no progeny to take over from him, he was clearly hanging in there for as long as he was able. I couldn’t afford to keep putting off my call.
A woman with the lilt of the Caribbean in her voice bid me a cheerful hello. I introduced myself and asked if she was Louise. She said she most surely was and what could she do for me?
