Spirits, Pies, and Alibis

by Nicole St Claire

  “I’m sure Grady knows more about it than we do.” Noah pressed his lips together until they formed a thin, pale line across his face. I could tell he wasn’t pleased but was trying to make the best of it. “I appreciate your help, though, Tamsyn. If you don’t mind continuing to go through the records… I mean, after this, I understand—”

  “Of course, I’ll still take a look,” I assured him. And that wasn’t the only thing I planned to look into, that was for certain. Every time I closed my eyes, I could see Douglas Strong standing in the rain, trying to speak. There was more to his death, that much I knew. If the authorities weren’t going to take me seriously, I would just have to find the truth myself. I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. That would show Sheriff Grady. I was going to solve the mystery of Douglas Strong’s death, somehow. There had to be a way, and if I couldn’t do it alone, I’d get Sybil and Cassandra to help. Whatever had caused the crash, I would figure it out, even if it took embracing my destiny and becoming a full-fledged witch to succeed.

  Chapter Eight

  When Sybil told me we were meeting at Cass’s family’s tearoom, I have to be honest, my imagination ran away with me. I pictured a dark, mystical sort of place, with magical potion ingredients like eye of newt and dragon scales kept in bottles and jars or maybe one of those big apothecary cabinets with all the tiny drawers. I assumed there would be a beaded curtain, behind which nervous-looking clients would furtively slip in order to get their palms read. What I didn’t expect was to walk into a room that looked like it was set for an afternoon tea in Wonderland.

  Each of the shop’s four walls was painted in their own shade of pastel blue, pink, yellow, or green. There were a dozen or more small, round tables, each draped with a different floral-print tablecloth. Lace doilies covered every visible surface, and I had the impression the Hollings had somehow managed to collect one of every variety of china tea pot or cup and saucer pattern that had ever been created. It was a Tuesday around noon, and every seat was filled with people dressed in their Sunday best, eating delicate sandwiches and pastries from three-tiered serving trays.

  I waited near the front door for a minute before Cassandra entered the room, wearing another of the long, flowing skirts and peasant blouses that seemed to be her signature style. Her long black hair was braided in a single rope down her back. When she saw me, she smiled and walked quickly toward where I stood.

  “Hi, Tamsyn!” She greeted me with a quick hug. “Sybil’s already here. We’re meeting in the back room.”

  Aha. So, there was a back room after all.

  But it, too, was not as I had imagined it. As it turned out, the private room where we met was the one usually reserved for birthday parties, which is how I found myself attending my first official coven meeting while seated on a massive throne with the words “Birthday Princess” painted in golden script above my head. Again, not exactly how I’d pictured the day going. The one thing that did match my imagination was the Ouija board that had been placed on top of the velvet-draped table. When Cass and I entered the room, Sybil was just setting the heart-shaped pointer on the board.

  “Have you ever used a spirit board, Tamsyn?” Sybil asked once I was seated on my throne.

  I shrugged. “Sure. I think there was something like this at Becky Johnson’s birthday party when I was in the seventh grade. I distinctly remember one of the other girls pushing the pointy thing toward the word no when Becky asked if Matt Blake would ask her to the middle-school dance.”

  Sybil and Cass both laughed, though I wasn’t certain why. Everyone knew Ouija boards were a bunch of hooey. No matter how much everyone swore they wouldn’t, someone was always going to push the marker to make the board say what they wanted to hear.

  “You’ve never used a spirit board with real witches, then,” Sybil said knowingly.

  “Obviously not,” I muttered.

  “Do you have the note?” Sybil asked.

  I took the crumpled note from my pocket and put it on the table. I started to place my fingers on the wooden pointer, but to my surprise, Cass put her hand out, stopping me.

  “Not like that,” she said. “We don’t touch the planchette.”

  No touching the planchette? I couldn’t help but wonder what the whole point of this exercise was. Were we just going to sit and stare at the board? I was about to ask when a sulfurous smell tickled my nose and caught me up short, tying my stomach into a knot. The thick white pillar candle Sybil had been holding was suddenly lit, but there was no sign of a match. My skepticism waned, replaced by a mounting apprehension. What would I do if it turned out all this was real?

  As if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, Sybil set the candle in a brass holder beside the board. Then she and Cass joined hands, and each reached out to take hold of mine, too. Just as it had happened the night of the party, the moment our fingers touched and the circle was closed, a current of electricity moved through my arms. I jumped and tried to pull my hands away, but my friends tightened their grips. After a few moments, the sharp tingling I’d initially felt settled into a more manageable hum, and my muscles relaxed, though my pulse continued to throb as if I’d just run up a flight of stairs.

  “Now what?” I whispered.

  “Now we center ourselves.”

  Center ourselves? I thought. Definitely hooey. I sighed heavily, my frustration getting the better of me. “I’m sorry, but that’s the type of nonsense people always say to do, and I have no idea how to do it.”

  “Start by taking a few deep breaths,” Sybil instructed me.

  “Clear your mind of any distractions,” Cass added. “Then think about the question we want answered.”

  I nodded, and despite my grave misgivings, I respected them both enough that I gave it a shot. Having failed miserably at both yoga and meditation in the past, I didn’t have high hopes, but shockingly, I could almost feel the stillness entering my body as I drew my first breath.

  “I think it’s working,” I said with much surprise as I pushed the air out of my lungs. “What should we ask first?”

  “Let’s start,” Sybil said, “by finding out if Doug Strong’s death was a murder, a suicide, or an accident.”

  I nodded. “So, I just ask that? Spirit board, was Doug Strong’s death a murder, an accident, or a suicide?”

  “No, no,” Cass corrected. “It’s best if you start with a yes or no question. Asking it to spell out too many long messages can take all day. And you can just address it as spirits, not spirit board. It’s more polite.”

  “Oh, sorry,” I said, directing my apology at the rectangle of cardboard on the table and then feeling about as ridiculous as one might expect when I realized I was addressing an inanimate object. Still, the others were counting on me so I had to go through with the ritual as best as I could. I took a deep breath and spoke loudly. “Spirits, was Doug Strong murdered?”

  “Good job,” Sybil assured me.

  I stared at the board, but nothing was happening. This was hardly a surprise since the three of us were just sitting there, holding hands, and not touching the board or the planchette at all. “Now what?”

  “Now, we wait,” Cass informed me.

  That’s it? I nearly yelled, only managing to keep my cool because I was so relaxed from all the breathing in and out that my body could have been made of limp spaghetti. Instead of throwing a fit, I kept my mouth shut and stared intently at the wooden planchette, breathing to the point I feared I might hyperventilate.

  The first time the heart-shaped scrap of wood moved on its own, I thought I had imagined it. My head was dizzy from the breathing, and the movement was so slight that it could easily have been attributed to my eyes playing a trick on me. I blinked a few times and had just decided that the movement had been in my mind when it moved again, and not just a little. Without a single one of us touching it, the planchette slid shakily across the board all on its own, coming to rest on the word yes. I was no longer breathing at all. “Did you see th
at?” I whispered.

  Sybil nodded. “Spirits, tell us who sent the note.”

  After a few tense seconds, the planchette jerked and chugged across the board until it landed on the letter L. I gasped. Without thinking, I pulled my hands back, breaking the circle. The candle’s flame flickered and went out.

  “Tamsyn,” Cass said with a groan, “do you know how much energy it’s going to take to get started again?”

  “I’m sorry, but I just remembered something that happened the afternoon of Doug Strong’s party, when the inn was filled with all of those, uh, witches.” I stopped and swallowed. Even considering my present company, and the fact that I’d just watched a wooden pointer move itself across a spirit board unaccompanied, I still couldn’t shake the belief that talking about witches as though they were real was ludicrous.

  “Yes, the witches from the mainland. They visit every year for the solstice,” Cass said as if it weren’t at all unusual to talk about a supernatural convention descending on the island on an annual basis, which I supposed for her it wasn’t. “What happened?”

  “There was an older woman,” I continued, “Madame Alexandria. She offered to do a reading for me. I said no, but then she just went ahead and told me anyway that she saw the letter L and an airplane. I hadn’t really thought about it until now, but here’s the letter L again. That has to be the killer, don’t you think?”

  Sybil nodded excitedly. “I think you might be right.”

  “All we need are the rest of the letters in the name.” I reached one hand out to each side to form the circle again, but Cass and Sybil both shook their heads.

  “It’s no good,” Cass explained. “We’ve used too much energy already. There’s no way we’ll be able to make a connection again so soon.”

  “I’m afraid she’s right,” Sybil agreed, yawning, and now that I thought about it, I could feel my own exhaustion creeping up on me. “Let’s meet up tomorrow and try this again.”

  With nothing left to do but wait, I headed back to the inn. What I really needed was a nap, but when I got to my bedroom, I was greeted by one very naughty black cat wallowing in the middle of the Strong Corp. financial papers, plus the new documents Noah had given me, which all had been knocked off the desk, mixed around, and spread in a thin layer across the floor.

  “Oh, Gus,” I groaned. As I took a step in his direction, Gus saw fit to hightail it out of the room before the door shut and locked him in with my wrath. As I reached down to gather the papers in a pile, my eye was drawn to a yellow slip that was badly rumpled from having been directly underneath the massive feline. It was a carbon copy of a handwritten invoice from a mechanic who had done some work on Douglas Strong’s plane. It was dated June 19, just three days before the crash. To my eye, there was no mistaking the similarities between the writing on this invoice and what was on the threatening note I’d found the day before.

  The mechanic’s name was one I’d heard before: Larry Sloane.

  The letter L and an airplane. Bingo.

  I raced down the stairs to the kitchen at double speed, finding Aunt Gwen where she always seemed to be, cooking something delectable.

  “Tamsyn, ready for that lesson on how to bake lemon pound cake?”

  “Another time, if that’s all right,” I replied. “If I needed to find some information on a local resident, where would I start?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What kind of information, exactly? This doesn’t have anything to do with you and Noah Caldwell, does it?” From the way she said it, and the mischievous gleam in her eye, it was impossible not to catch her meaning.

  “Noah and I? But we aren’t… That is, I’ve been helping him sort through some of the Strong Corp. accounts. Purely professional.”

  “Oh.” Her disappointment was palpable. But had she asked because the gossip had already come home to roost, or because she’d been trying to cast a spell on me?

  “Aunt Gwen…” I was about to ask her straight out if she’d been slipping me a love potion, but I changed my mind. Finding out about Larry Sloane was more important. “The research?”

  “Who are you trying to find information about?”

  I hesitated, not sure I wanted to admit to all the snooping I was doing. “I need to get my car fixed, and I wanted to check out a local guy that was recommended to me, Larry Sloane.”

  “Oh, I know Larry. He’s very good.”

  Of course, she knew Larry. He was probably the only mechanic on the island. Why hadn’t I thought of that before mentioning his name? “Yeah, but I want some customer review kind of things.”

  She thought for a moment. “Your best bet is checking with Sue Ellen Wolcott.”

  “Sybil’s grandmother?”

  My aunt nodded. “She volunteers over at the library, managing the town archives for the historical society. Plus, she knows everything about everyone.”

  Great. In a town full of busybodies, my aunt just happened to be best friends with the queen bee.

  It was almost four o’clock when I chained my bicycle to the rack outside the library. Technically, I probably didn’t need to lock it up since I was floating on an island with almost no crime, but it’s how I was raised. The library was empty when I arrived, and it took little effort to locate Sue Ellen Wolcott behind the archives desk. She had dark brown hair that was either kept that way with the help of a hairstylist or possibly by magic—now that I was privy to some of Pinecroft Cove’s better-kept secrets. Though she was well into her seventies, she was stylish and radiated vitality, and I was beginning to understand what Sybil meant by glamour magic.

  “Um, Auntie Sue?” It’s what I’d always called her as a child, but I hadn’t seen her in years, so I tripped over the greeting. Was that really what I should call her? I wasn’t sure. Still, Miss Wolcott seemed too formal, but addressing a woman from my grandmother’s generation by her first name alone felt equally wrong. Apparently, Noah wasn’t the only element from my past that made me doubt myself. Since returning to the island, I’d discovered a new way to feel less certain of myself every day. Yay, me.

  “Tamsyn!” Auntie Sue beamed and didn’t seem to notice my awkwardness at all, which put me at ease immediately. Her eyes crinkled when she smiled, but in a way that somehow didn’t make you think of her age. More glamour magic, for sure. “How can I help you?”

  “Well, this might sound strange, but Aunt Gwen tells me you know everything that goes on in town. I was hoping you could tell me if there was ever any bad blood between Douglas Strong and his mechanic, Larry Sloane.”

  Auntie Sue’s perfectly manicured eyebrows shot up in obvious surprise. “As a matter of fact, there was something a couple years back. Hold on, and I’ll see if I can find it in the archive.”

  Being a millennial, I guess I was expecting some sort of digital archive, so I was more than a little surprised when she came back a few minutes later carrying several thick binders filled with actual paper news clippings. She rifled through the pages until she came to the one she was looking for.

  “Here we go,” Auntie Sue said, opening the book flat so I could see. “It’s not always so easy to find things, but I was just organizing this part of the archive a few weeks ago, and this was quite the topic of conversation on the island in its day. Five years back, Doug Strong was buying up land near the waterfront to build his first set of condos on the island. It just so happened that it had been a couple of terrible years in a row for the lobstermen, and a number of them were looking to sell. He managed to buy up a whole row of houses, except for one, which was owned by Minnie Sloane.”

  Minnie Sloane. I was sure I’d heard the name before, but I couldn’t remember where. “She refused to sell?”

  “She made a counteroffer, for double what he’d paid the others. I guess she figured, being the last one, he’d make it worth her while. Plus, Minnie’s husband had a small pension from the coast guard, so they weren’t in as bad of shape financially as some of the others were. Who could blame her for holding out
for as much as she could get, right?”

  “Makes sense. Did he take the offer?”

  “Well, a funny thing happened. All of a sudden, some investigators from the EPA came by, and Minnie found out she had toxic chemicals in her soil from the boats her husband stored there. The state was going to make her pay a fortune to clean it all up. So, Doug bought the property for the original price he’d offered and promised to take care of the cleanup out of his own pocket.”

  I frowned. “That sounds pretty generous under the circumstances. Why the bad blood?”

  “Well, folks around here were split on that. Some agreed the offer was generous. Minnie tried to be greedy as far as they saw it and then had some bad luck, and Doug came to her rescue, making sure she made out the same in the end as all her neighbors had. But others found the timing a little too convenient and swore that Douglas Strong had orchestrated the EPA investigation himself, maybe even paying some people off along the way to get the results he wanted. After all, a lot of people store boats on their properties, so why was hers the only one that was contaminated?”

  I nodded slowly. It was the type of thing that was easy to imagine a real estate developer doing, especially one who had friends in high places. “Was there any proof he’d done it?”

  “Not a shred. But I recall Larry was pretty vocal at the time about it all being a setup.”

  She flipped the page to another article, and I saw a large photo of a Strong Corp. sign covered in graffiti beneath a headline that read “Vandalism Spree Continues to Plague Downtown Summerhaven.” The similarities between the graffiti and the handwriting on the invoice and note were impossible to dismiss. My pulse ticked faster as I recalled the graffiti-covered sign near the new condos, and I stood quickly, eager to go check it out in person. If Larry held a big enough grudge against Doug Strong after five years to still be defacing his signs, and he had access to the plane, who knew what else he might have been capable of doing?