Spell or High Water

by Gina LaManna

  I was pulled from my line of questioning when I felt a hand on my shoulder and jumped. “Mason!”

  “What’s going on here?” His good-natured grin had been replaced by a stern expression. “I heard screaming.”

  “Yeah, well, we uncovered a body,” I said. “Marilyn Johnson. Do you know her?”

  Mason’s face went pale. I took that to mean she’d been on his Christmas-list roster of ex-girlfriends.

  “Mason,” I snapped. “Get a handle on yourself and go call the police. I have to make sure Abigail doesn’t contaminate the crime scene any more than she already has.”

  I gestured to the medical examiner. She’d reached for Mary’s shoe, latched on, and began half-heartedly pulling the body toward her until I’d instructed her to stop.

  Mason gave a firm nod and, unlike everyone else who’d joined the crime scene, didn’t collapse into a fit of tears and fanning and makeup-application in case the media appeared to report on the crime scene.

  I rolled my eyes, thinking that the media would be none other than Skye Thorton, the only reporter for The Town Croaker — our local paper. If it weren’t for Skye I wouldn’t be here in the first place. I’d be at work getting warm, starting my broadcast and ... crap! Work!

  With a wash of relief, I realized that things hadn’t worked out so badly for me. They sure had for poor Mary Johnson, but the folks at the station surely would understand my tardiness once I explained. If anything, it was a blessing in disguise I’d discovered the body. I’d been able to get the police called faster and I wouldn’t have to make up a lame excuse about what had held me up.

  I took it upon myself to usher the girls back from the edge of the pool, sequestering them in a flighty knot of dressing gowns and nude shades of lipstick. Most of them turned their back on the pool and launched into a twitter of gossip over who might have wanted Mary dead. Rumors flew, and I tried to listen in, at least until our next guest arrived.

  “What happened?” Barnaby Sterling Montgomery, the town mayor, pulled up on his golf cart. He was wildly lazy and preferred to drive around the island instead of walking the short distances everywhere. His wife, Mitzi, was as usual knitting away next to her husband with an angry click-click-click. “Oh my, a murder at the Beauty Cottage. The drama!”

  The mayor had proudly nicknamed himself Buddy and insisted everyone call him that instead of the horrendously long name his mother had given him. Buddy looked keenly around, struggling to pull his eyes from the gaggle of girls clad in flimsy dressing gowns with straps of lace lingerie peeking out at the shoulders and neckline when the satin fabric slipped. Meanwhile, his wife click-click-clicked faster, as if hoping to knit each of the girls a nice, fluffy warm coat fit for Antarctica.

  “Evian found Mary Johnson face down in the pool,” the medical examiner said, sounding oddly excited. “She’s totally dead.”

  “As opposed to a little dead?” I looked at Abigail, horrified as usual that we entrusted her with such an important job. “Yes, mayor — .”

  “Buddy!” He patted his hefty stomach. “Call me Buddy, Evian. We’re all friends here.”

  “Buddy,” I gritted out. “I found Mary when I lost control of my scooter and crashed through there.” I raised my hand and pointed out the path of destruction. “Paul was the only person — er, toad — with me.”

  “Mary.” Buddy frowned, his thick cheeks turning red. “Wasn’t everyone betting on her to win the contest? Not that I’m a betting man, but if I were, isn’t that who I’d theoretically have put my money on to win?”

  Abigail gave a sour nod. “She’s won fifty-nine beauty pageants across the country. She was supposed to make this her sixtieth.”

  “Well, that’s not happening,” I said, my mind already clicking in search of foul play. I didn’t know for a fact that she’d been murdered, but to my untrained eye it looked as though the red marks around her neck signaled someone’s hands had recently squeezed there. “Poor thing.”

  “Maybe one of the other girls killed her,” Abigail suggested. “Tarryn is basically a shoo-in now for first place.”

  I didn’t like agreeing with Abigail as a general rule, but I couldn’t help admitting that she had a point. It’d been exactly what I was thinking but was afraid to say. At that moment, Eternal Springs’s cops arrived and took control of the scene.

  Like the mayor, the police seemed to have a tough time keeping their tongues from flopping out of their mouths at the sight of so many half-dressed ladies standing around the pool.

  “Gentleman,” I said with a cough. “The dead body?”

  Mason gave a reluctant smile at my left, having returned to my side after calling the police. He, too, looked unamused at what my dysfunctional scooter had uncovered.

  “Right, right,” Buddy cleared his throat importantly. “Let’s get to work, ladies and gents. Anyone take photos of the scene yet?”

  Abigail nodded. “And look there. We’ve got signs of strangulation around her neck.”

  One of the cops scratched his head. “We might be dealing with a murder.”

  I rolled my eyes. Like everything, apparently even murder investigations run on the notoriously slow island clock. “Look, I know I found the body, but I’m really late for work and the show is going to have to start with or without me. Can I give my statement and take off? You know where to find me for any follow-up questions.”

  The cops looked at each other, and the larger one shrugged. “Sure,” he said, pulling out a notepad. “Detail your morning for me, Miss Brooks.”

  I reviewed my morning, focusing on the stretch of time between my scooter crapping out and my discovery of Mary’s body. I glanced over to Mason for verification as I detailed our chat, and he nodded along for corroboration.

  “What about before your scooter, ah, crapped out?” The cop asked, quoting me. “Do you have anyone to verify your whereabouts?”

  “Sure — my toad, Paul,” I said with an eye roll and a nod toward my shoulder, where Paul perched. “But he’s a toad and doesn’t talk.”

  “The way I see things,” the cop said, “you could have come down here and killed Mary, and then gone back up the hill to get your scooter. Mason sees you, so you make up some excuse about your scooter not working, and —.”

  “I’m sorry for interrupting, but that makes no sense.” I pointed to the scooter in the corner. “It’s over there. Check it if you want. Also, what incentive do I have to kill Mary? I didn’t even know the woman.”

  “You were talking to all the ladies last night,” the cop said. “You didn’t meet her?”

  “Fine, I met her last night,” I clarified. “But only for a second. I asked if she’d come down to the station for a quick interview sometime this week to promote the pageant.”

  “What’d she say?”

  I shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the next. “Like many contestants, she declined.”

  The cop nodded, looking as though he’d cracked a difficult code. “She turned you down.”

  “Yes, like many of the other women —.”

  “You were upset with her.”

  “No! I wasn’t upset. I mean, just a tiny bit of annoyance maybe, but not enough to kill her! I could have had an interview lined up every day by the end of the night. In fact, I have one about to start now. The contestant is probably already at the station. I have to get going … can I leave now?”

  The cops glanced at one another.

  “You know where to find her,” Mason said, giving them a buddy-buddy sort of look that only dudes can master. “Let her do her broadcast for the two people who listen to the show.”

  “I have more than two people who listen to my show!” I retorted, but I didn’t mention the third person was my mother, and she rarely listened live. She still made me send her cassette tapes each week, which was another issue entirely. “But yes, anyway, Mason’s right. If you have more questions I’ll come down to the police station later.”

  “Fine, but don’t leave to
wn,” one of the cops said.

  I couldn’t tell if he was joking, but it wasn’t funny.

  As if, I thought, turning to stare at my scooter in despair. I couldn’t leave if I wanted. As one of four sworn protectors of the island — and not by choice — I was stuck here until there were no threats left to Eternal Springs. When might that be? Who knew? I could be stuck here forever, listening to Buddy give himself awards at every town hall meeting.

  “I’ll take care of the scooter,” Mason said. “You can head to work.”

  “Really?” I hated to ask a favor of him, but the gratefulness oozed out despite my trying to maintain control. “I would really appreciate that. And listen, I’m sorry about ... before. I had a rough morning.”

  “We all did,” he said with a dry smile. “I’ll catch you later.”

  I nodded, thanked him again, and double-checked Paul’s grip on my shoulder before I headed off to the station. I thought maybe I’d left a spare pair of jeans and a sweatshirt in my desk drawer in case of an emergency, and I prayed they were still there — and that they didn’t smell.

  I was an hour late. Leonard Buffet met me the second I careened into the building. His moustache — a gray, stiff caterpillar above his lip — didn’t look very happy with me.

  “More than an hour late! Miley is waiting for you in there. Your listeners are waiting out there.” He pointed a finger outside. “They’ve been listening to that stupid calypso music for an hour while you’ve been what? Bathing in the ocean?”

  “It’s raining,” I said, glancing down at my sopping clothes. “Or it was. And I lost control of my bike and, oh ... why am I explaining all this? First, I own this place, Leonard. Second, I found a dead body this morning.”

  “A dead body? What are you talking about?” He scoffed. “The deadliest thing on this island is Abigail’s perfume. She can take a room out with one spritz of that stuff.”

  “Unfortunately, she was there too. At the crime scene as the medical examiner,” I explained. “I think we have a murder on our hands.”

  His eyes brightened. “Nothing like a murder to boost ratings.”

  “That’s horrible,” I said, though a similar thought had crossed my mind. The difference between us is that I pushed it away out of respect for the dead. “Poor Mary is lying there in the pool, and all you can think about is ratings?”

  “Mary Johnson?” His voice turned almost as gleeful as Abigail’s. “She was scheduled to win this pageant! Talk about ratings. You get on this case, Evian Brooks — you hear me? I want to know the ins and outs of it before Skye gets ahold of this one.”

  “That’s a horrible idea.”

  Leonard waved a hand. “Yeah, yeah. I know you feel bad and all of that jazz. Misery and sadness and funerals, yada yada.” He must have seen my un-bemused expression because Leonard stopped talking and reframed his expression to one of remorse. “I know it’s sad. This is my coping mechanism.”

  “Well, you should do a better job of being sympathetic,” I said. “You sound creepy and very rude.”

  “I’m sorry. Look, I know this must be upsetting to you, but don’t you want to help Mary?”

  “I think it’s too late to help her. She’s dead — that’s the point of my story.”

  “Yes, but if she was murdered we need to find justice for her. I don’t know about you, but I’m not willing to put all my hopes for Mary’s justice into the hands of Abigail, Buddy and the rent-a-cops we’ve got running this place.”

  “Fine, but what can I do?”

  “You’ve always wanted to do a more investigative reporting-type show,” Leonard said. “Well? This is your chance. Dig around, ask some questions, see what you can find. You’ll be helping Mary, and you just might solve a murder investigation. Plus, our ratings are horrible. I can’t understand why technology is such an issue on the island, but I’ve received seven death threats just this morning claiming people will murder me if I don’t cut the calypso music. But I can’t! I don’t know where the heck it’s coming from!”

  “Don’t worry,” I reassured him. “I’ll look into it. We’ll get the ratings up.”

  “You’d better,” he said, “or I’ll be the next dead body around here, and you’ll be short one excellent employee.”

  Three

  Kenna Brynne sizzled with frustration. I should’ve known I’d get a visit from her. I just hadn’t expected it to be on my walk of shame from the show.

  My interview with beauty contestant Connie Hart had flopped. She seemed to be still drunk from karaoke the night before and slurred her way through every answer, stopping to ask for a Bloody Mary in the middle of her introduction — hugely inappropriate, considering the dead body in the pool just hours earlier.

  To stall, Leonard had blasted more calypso music and we’d added three more death threats to the morning tally. It was a disaster. Plus, my underwear was still wet from the rain making me very uncomfortable.

  I was in the middle of walking home to shower and change, muttering nonsensical curses about Connie Hart to Paul as I climbed the hill. Kenna blindsided me as I passed the Beauty Cottage.

  “What were you thinking, Evian?” she snapped. “You’ve ruined everything. Everything!”

  “Um, sorry?” I faced her, ignoring Paul’s warnings to stay calm. “Do you feel like reminding me about what I did this time?”

  Kenna and Skye, along with me, are three of the four witches tasked with guarding Eternal Springs from threats of the supernatural variety. Thanks to an incident when we’d studied at St. Joan of Arc — an incident that wasn’t my fault, should anyone ask — we’d been deemed negligent while on watch one evening, which made it our duty to stick around and guard the portal to make sure no creatures escaped into this world. It was the definition of a thankless job.

  That was the same night our school had burned down, the coven had gone fleeing to the mainland, and a heard of cats (witchy familiars who hadn’t wanted to move to New Jersey) had escaped into the Cottonmouth Copse. Unfortunately, we’d been stuck here to clean up the mess and keep monsters from escaping the dreaded hole that’d been left open.

  “Seriously, Evian?” Kenna tapped a pen against her ever-present clipboard. “Take a look.”

  I followed her line of sight to the marks left from where my scooter had skidded off the road, past the crumpled bushes and mutilated fence, into the gaping hole that had been roped off by crime scene tape.

  “Oops,” I said, turning back. “I’m sorry about the damage, but it wasn’t my fault. I mean, I’ll pay for it, but … .”

  “It’s not about the damage!” she barked. “I’m talking about the murder!”

  “Well, I definitely didn’t do that. You can’t believe that I’m a suspect. You know me better than just about anyone else on this island and yeah, I know that’s depressing.”

  “I’m not talking about the murder suspect … .” She blinked up at me. “Did you say you’re a suspect?”

  “Why don’t I shut up and let you talk?”

  Kenna shook her red hair and I swear licks of flame singed the tips. She was truly angry. “I’m talking about the tourism industry! As you know, I head the tourism board. This beauty pageant was supposed to bring in a ton of visitors!”

  “Right. I think the visitors are still here.”

  “You’re supposed to draw people to Eternal Springs — not kill them!”

  “I already told you I had nothing to do with it! I can’t help that I stumbled onto the body. If it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else. Whoever killed Mary, if it is in fact a murder, wasn’t going to stop because the head of the tourism board asked politely.”

  “Well, they should.” She harrumphed. “Now all the attention will be focused on her death and the media we’ll get will be annoyingly negative. Here we are, supposedly drawing beautiful women to the island, and now we’re killing them off.”

  “There’s no evidence to support anyone else is getting killed off. Plus, they always say ther
e’s no such thing as bad press.” I pointed toward the pool. “Not to mention, have you considered the tragedy this is for Mary and her family? I can’t believe you’re even thinking of the tourism board right now.”

  “This island’s got to stay alive somehow. If we don’t have visitors, we don’t have a community.”

  “Would that be so bad?” I frowned. “Maybe if everyone left the island we wouldn’t be stuck here together guarding the stupid portal.”

  “How dare you bring that up? Especially when it was your fault —.”

  “It was not my fault, Kenna. Now, my clothes are chafing in areas that aren’t polite to adjust in public, so I’m going to go home to change. If you want to keep yelling at me, then you’ll have to walk beside me.”

  “Where are you in a hurry to go?”

  “Home. I told you.”

  “You’ve got that determined look in your eye, Evian. You’re not fooling me.”

  “Fine.” I wheeled to face her and Paul gave a groan of disapproval. “I’m going to ask around about Mary’s death. We all know the ME isn’t exactly top notch, and our police force is just too small to handle everything. I’m going to do a little investigation on my own time.”

  She gasped. “You’re going to compete with Skye for the story.”

  “I’m not competing! I’m just doing my job. It might help with ratings for the show.”

  “You’re as bad as me, you know,” Kenna said, scurrying to keep up as I launched back into a march toward home, “using the murder for your own benefit.”

  “I’m not worried about tourism; I’m trying to get justice for Mary.”

  “Fine!” Kenna stopped, gasping for air as I trekked on ahead. “Run away from me, but don’t you dare let this affect my numbers! Otherwise I will curse you! I will set your hair on fire!”

  “I’m a water witch,” I hollered back, relieved that nobody else was around to hear. Otherwise, they’d think we were crazier than they already did. “I’ll hose you down, Kenna.”

  You have got to cool it with those girls, Paul said as I made it home and unlocked the door. It’s the four of you in this together.