by Sharon Pape
Chapter 54
Thanksgiving morning was sunny and cold, the sky an intense cerulean blue that looked like it could slice a bird’s wing if the creature wheeled too sharply through it. Elise had asked us all to arrive at two, with dinner to be served around three. I was up early to prepare the side dishes I was bringing. This was the first Thanksgiving Tilly and I would celebrate without Morgana and Bronwen, the first Elise’s sons would spend without their dad. Gathering together as one family promised to be healing for all of us. Travis had wrangled the day off, not that it was difficult after making headlines by bringing down Ryan’s killer and his entourage. Like the rest of us, he’d suffered the loss of someone close to him.
Sashkatu and the other cats seemed to know it was not an ordinary day. After an early breakfast, the five younger members of my household followed me around as though trying to deduce how the difference would impact them. Sashkatu watched us from atop the couch, an old man who no longer understood the zip and zeal of youth. He’d lived through enough holiday celebrations to recognize the signs, even when the festivities were to be held elsewhere. I’d briefly debated taking him along, but with each passing year he had less tolerance for tumult. He’d be happier at home. Once I made the decision, Sashki closed his eyes and with a sigh of relief, fell asleep. The evidence was mounting that he had at least some rudimentary ability to read my mind.
Elise had asked me to find two new recipes to replace the standard casseroles of green beans and sweet potatoes. I searched the web and came up with one dish that combined butternut squash, quinoa, spinach, walnuts, and raisins and a second one for goat cheese and grape stuffed sweet potatoes. I made a few extra potatoes that I left in their natural state, in case Zach and Noah turned up their noses at the break with tradition. Tilly was also up early, baking for the occasion. According to Merlin’s progress reports, there would be multiple pies and a tin of her crispy thin spice cookies. Travis had been charged with bringing the ice cream.
Elise’s house was filled with the holiday aroma of turkey roasting in the oven. The boys were upstairs squabbling over some game—the beginning of a typical American Thanksgiving. I found Elise at the sink rinsing a package of fresh cranberries in a sieve. I set my two dishes on the stovetop. “They’re still hot,” I said, “but we’ll probably have to reheat them before we sit down. Now, how can I help?”
“The table needs setting,” she said. “Otherwise I have things under control.”
“You’re amazing,” I said with admiration. “You’re cool, calm, and collected even when there’s a civil war raging overhead.”
She laughed. “That’s just white noise at this point. Look at you and Travis. You’re actual heroes! Two days ago you could easily have been killed.” She was tearing up, so I pulled her into a hug.
“But we’re here and it’s all good. Besides, don’t you know there’s no crying on Thanksgiving?”
When Travis straggled in fifteen minutes late, we were all accounted for. Although he’d had the longest trip, he confessed sheepishly that he’d lost track of time watching a football game. Elise forgave him. After all it was Thanksgiving and we had a lot to be grateful for.
When we sat down to eat, the boys called a truce in their dispute at their mother’s request. Elise held up her glass and we all raised ours too. “To Kailyn and Travis,” she said. “Congratulations and thank you. Due to your courageous efforts, Sam Crawford is behind bars where he belongs.” We received a spirited round of applause. “And now,” she went on, “I for one expect a detailed account of how it all went down—every why and wherefore!”
We passed the platters of food around the table as Tilly described how she and Merlin were snatched on their way from The Soda Jerk to her car. “When we got to Kailyn’s house, they threatened to kill us if we didn’t tell them how to breach the wards. They kept calling them a force field, like we were in Star Wars or Star Trek or something. I didn’t know what to do. I just knew I couldn’t let them kill Merlin. So I shut down the wards.”
I took over to explain what happened once they were inside my house, and Travis carried on with the story from his arrival until we stormed into Crawford’s office. I filled in the first few minutes when Travis was still in the lobby.
“What was Crawford’s motive?” Elise asked.
“It seems the man had a conscience after all,” I said, “and it finally caught up with him. His dilemma was how to keep earning the big bucks from clients and still live with himself after some of those clients wound up killing innocent people. The solution? Take their money, win their cases in court, and then kill them off. But Crawford didn’t hit upon that solution until Everett Royce came on the scene and they put their heads together.”
Travis picked up the thread of the story. “Everett Royce lost his wife to a distracted driver that Crawford had put back on the streets. Royce was devastated. He was determined to exact justice when the man stood trial for her death. He went to Epps and begged the prosecutor to pull out all the stops, cash in all his favors, and send the guy to prison for the rest of his life. Epps said he’d do his best, but maybe Royce should also talk to Crawford about dialing back his efforts, given the circumstances.
“Epps felt so awful about the whole situation that he started calling Royce to see how he was coping. That led to the occasional meeting for lunch or dinner. Epps became sort of a father figure to the younger man. Royce was a football coach at the high school and made extra money as a handyman. Epps sent work his way whenever he could.”
“I’m sure a psychiatrist would have a ball sorting out that relationship,” Elise remarked, passing the turkey platter around again.
“At some point,” Travis continued, “Royce took Epps’s advice and went to talk to Crawford about the upcoming trial. That’s when things really started popping. When those two put their heads together, the solution was born. Royce had one stipulation—he wanted to take down his wife’s killer himself. After that, Crawford hired Mason and Flint to help him with the others.”
“Flint was the man we called Biker Dude and Ski Mask Guy,” Tilly chimed in. “Can someone pass the stuffing and gravy?”
“How come they made some of the deaths look like accidents, but not others?” Zach asked.
Travis served himself a heaping spoonful of Elise’s drunken cranberry sauce as he explained. “In order for it to look like an accident, the victim had to suffer from a condition that could be exploited, so their death wouldn’t raise any eyebrows.”
“I get it,” Zach said, “you mean like giving a heroin addict an overdose of heroin?”
“Exactly.”
“Or like killing someone who’s depressed and making it look like a suicide.” He was on a roll. “Or like—”
“You, young man, better forget about becoming a criminal mastermind right now,” Elise said laughing. “Kailyn, I have a question for you. Were the murders committed months or years apart to keep the police from seeing them as a pattern?”
“That, along with the different methods of killing the people.”
“Hey, Mom,” Noah piped up, “no life of crime for you either!” Everyone laughed and Zach gave him a high-five.
“So was Lena involved in any of it?” Elise asked.
“Just lending Flint the bike and unlocking my door to help him get in. She claims she had no idea he intended to kill us. She thought he was still just trying to scare us into stopping the investigation.”
“What about the night she sneaked back into the courthouse to photocopy Epps’s papers?”
“That turned out to be nothing,” I said. “She hadn’t finished working on the papers and Epps needed them the next morning. Since she wasn’t allowed to take the paperwork out of the office, she did the next best thing, figuring no one would be the wiser.”
“What came of Austin Stubbs’s fake alibi?” Merlin asked, finally putting down the turkey leg he
’d been ripping into with his teeth. He looked more like he belonged at a medieval feast thrown by his pal, King Arthur, than at a twenty-first century American Thanksgiving. All that was missing was a wench or two.
“Travis called that one,” I said.
“I might have done the same thing given the circumstances,” he added. “Stubbs was afraid if he told the police he was home alone the night his son died, they wouldn’t believe him. It was well-known in Burdett that he and Axel were always at each other’s throats.”
After everyone’s questions were answered, the dinner conversation took a lighter turn, sprinkled liberally with compliments to the chef. I was accorded the honorary title of side-dish diva, and as always, Tilly’s desserts won raves, making her blush almost as red as her curls.
We all helped clean up to give our hostess some well-deserved rest. Tilly and Merlin were the first to leave, both of them stuffed to the groaning point. Even so, the wizard tried to make off with the remains of the pumpkin pie beneath his parka, until Tilly caught him. “But you baked it—it’s ours,” he protested as she pulled it out of his hands.
“When you bring a gift to someone, it’s theirs to keep,” Tilly said. Merlin muttered something in old English, but made no further attempt to abscond with the pie. Elise stopped them at the door and handed the pie back to Merlin.
“Noah asked me to please give it to you,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind, Tilly, but I try to encourage generosity in my boys whenever I can.” Merlin thanked Noah without prompting and left with a grin stretched across his face.
Travis thanked Elise for the wonderful Thanksgiving. Caught up in the spirit of the day, she made him promise to come again next year. I walked him into the foyer and found his coat in the closet. He pulled it on, lamenting the fact that he had to be in the newsroom early in the morning. We drew together in a lingering kiss that neither of us seemed willing to end, until Noah saw us and ran upstairs giggling.
When I got home, I fed my furries and collapsed on the couch. At first Sashkatu seemed miffed by my absence, as if he’d forgotten that he’d given me tacit approval to go without him. A full belly restored his good humor, because he climbed up beside me and rubbed his head under my chin like he used to when we were both younger.
“That’s what I like to see,” Morgana said, her white cloud appearing before me. “Happy Thanksgiving to my Earth-bound family.”
“Wish you’d been with us,” I said.
“Me too.”
“Me three.” Bronwen’s cloud popped up beside my mother’s. “I figured I’d find you here, Morgana. Have you forgotten? We’re expected you know where.” I knew better than to ask what she meant. They’d told me more than once that what happened on that plane was not for those of us still hooked up to flesh and bone.
“It’s not tonight, Mother,” Morgana replied. If she’d had eyes to roll, she probably would have rolled them.
“It most certainly is tonight. You should pay better attention.”
“Ladies,” I said, “it’s Thanksgiving. Can’t you let it go for now? It doesn’t matter which one of you is right more often. No one else is keeping score. Besides, aren’t you supposed to have left all that pettiness behind you?” Maybe that’s why they were still stuck on the first rung of the heavenly ladder.
“She’s right,” they said at the same time, which started them giggling.
“Much better,” I said. “Happy Thanksgiving!” They sent me their love and vanished together. Barely a minute passed before the phone rang.
“It’s happened again,” Tilly said in a fevered voice. I really didn’t want to know what happened again. I just wanted to go to sleep. But that wasn’t in the cards.
“There’s going to be another murder,” she said. And there it was—precisely what I didn’t want to hear.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to my daughter, Lauren, for her invaluable help whenever it’s needed, and to my husband, Dennis, for shouldering more than his share. I promise to get back to cooking.
Don’t miss the next intriguing book in the Abracadabra mystery series
MAGICKAL MYSTERY LORE
Coming soon from Lyrical Underground, an imprint of Kensington Publishing Corp.
Keep reading to enjoy a sample excerpt!
Chapter 1
“That infernal machine is naught but an instrument of torture,” Merlin grumbled as he staggered toward us. “What possessed you to allow me on it?” With his long white hair that had come untethered during the ride and his rats’ nest of a beard, he looked more like a wino than a legendary sorcerer from the kingdom of Camelot. He stumbled over his feet and pitched forward into the frothy layers of my Aunt Tilly’s lavender muumuu.
“We tried to stop you,” I reminded him. “You won’t like it, Merlin, we said. Don’t do it, Merlin, we said. Does that sound at all familiar?”
“Well yes, but you must admit that everyone on the ride seemed delighted.”
“There are a lot of people who love rides like that,” Tilly said.
“In that case, I can refer them to a beefy chap who works in a dungeon and is quite skilled in all manner of torturous devices.”
Tilly held him away from her, hands on his shoulders. “Let’s see if you can stand on your own without falling over.” Merlin wobbled a bit before finding his equilibrium. “There,” she said, letting go of him. “Are you at all queasy?”
“Not in the least.”
“Count yourself lucky,” I said, not having been as fortunate my one and only time on that ride. “I couldn’t look at food for hours.”
“You appear to be fine,” Tilly proclaimed.
“I am not fine. The whole ordeal has left me famished,” he said as we walked away from the Tilt-a-Whirl. We were in the thick of the forty-fifth annual New Camel Day Fair, elbow to elbow with a few hundred attendees. Moving from one attraction to another was largely a matter of joining the stream of people heading in the direction we wanted to go. If we weren’t careful, we could wind up back on the line for Merlin’s nightmare ride.
“I don’t know how you can be hungry,” I said. “You’ve already had three hotdogs, curly cheese fries, lemonade, and two root beers.”
“And yet my stomach demands more.”
“Does it have a particular request?” Tilly asked dryly.
“Cotton candy,” he said without a moment’s hesitation. “And a candy apple. I’ve never tasted either.” There ensued a debate on the wisdom of Merlin eating the apple with its hard, sticky coating. A quick inspection of his mouth revealed he was missing a number of teeth and many of the remaining ones were chipped or broken. I explained that he could lose the teeth he had left with one bite into the apple. Tilly suggested replacing it with kettle corn, which proved to be a winner.
Two pounds of sugar later, we headed over to the booths where New Camel’s merchants displayed their wares. My family had always participated, displaying our most popular health and beauty products. Tilly used our booth to hold a drawing for a free psychic reading and English tea. It was a lot easier when my mother and grandmother were alive and there were four of us to take turns manning the booth. Although Tilly and I had managed all right on our own last year, now that we had to oversee Merlin, we’d decided to forgo the booth this once. It was a difficult decision, because Abracadabra always enjoyed a nice uptick in its customer base when folks bought our products at the fair and decided they couldn’t live without them.
I’d already been stopped by a dozen people who looked for our booth and were disappointed when they couldn’t find it. When I offered to open my shop at three o’clock to accommodate them, they acted like they’d won the lottery. Tilly applauded the move as good business. Merlin contended it was a fool’s errand to try to please everyone.
The Soda Jerk was the first of the booths we came to. They weren’t serving sundaes
and shakes on the spot, but two of the owners’ great grandkids were there handing out paper menus with coupons to buy one sundae and get a second one free at their restaurant. Their line was long, but moved so fast that in no time we each came away with a coupon.
We walked past the booths that held no interest for Merlin—from vintage clothing to dollhouses, Victoriana to candles. Had it been up to Tilly and me, we would have stopped to say a quick hello to every merchant who wasn’t busy with customers. But we’d learned the hard way that a powerful sorcerer with a failing memory could wreak all sorts of havoc if he grew bored.
When we reached the display of old-fashioned toys, Merlin was intrigued. He checked out the paddle ball, jacks, and kaleidoscope while we chatted with the owner, Nelson Biddle, a staple in the New Camel business community as far back as I could remember. He told us he’d been thinking of retiring, but his wife wouldn’t let him. She didn’t want him sitting around the house all day watching TV or following her around like a shadow. At that point, Merlin paddled the little ball into his eye and let loose a string of profanities, some in Old English, others that needed no translation. We apologized to Nelson and moved on.
“It’s a wonder more children don’t lose an eye from that thing,” Merlin muttered.
“It’s not meant to be aimed at your face,” Tilly said.
“I possess a curious mind,” he replied indignantly. “I was simply testing it from every angle.”
Hannah Rose waved from the Busy Fingers booth when she saw us approaching. It would have been rude not to stop. She had a beautiful display of her handicrafts—knitted baby items, crocheted afghans, and embroidered throw pillows. She was also offering half price lessons in any of the handicrafts if booked during the fair. Like every merchant there, her goal was to entice fairgoers to visit her shop and become long-term customers.
