Familiar Motives

by Delia James

  “And what time was this?”

  “I’m afraid I wasn’t keeping track. Around seven, I think.”

  “Thank you.”

  She nodded without answering.

  I drifted through the hotel lobby. The sense that I was missing something followed me all the way through the lobby. It hung in the air while I scratched a forlorn-looking Miss Boots’s ears in the lobby. Evidently, Alistair had not been back recently.

  “Let him go, sweetie,” I told her. “The big galoot will only break your heart.”

  She sniffed at me.

  When I got to the parking lot and my Jeep, I started the engine and sat for a long time with my arms wrapped around me.

  Because Cheryl Bell had lied about being in Ramona’s apartment. She must have. If she’d really been there, she would have noticed that the balcony door was open. That detail had not gotten into the media reports of the crime—at least, not yet. I knew because recently I’d been maybe just a little obsessed with following the news.

  If you’d read only about what was found, or not found, in Ramona’s apartment, you wouldn’t know about that open door. But if you’d been there, you couldn’t miss it. I knew that, too, because when I ran into Ramona’s apartment that night, the first thing I noticed was that the place was freezing.

  So, Cheryl was lying. But why this particular lie? It was dangerous. If the police believed she was there that night, they might believe she was the murderer.

  But then, maybe that was the point. The lie was so dangerous, so potentially damaging, it would seem more likely. I mean, why would anybody make up a story that could turn on them like that?

  If Cheryl’s story about bribing Ramona and stealing Ruby was supposed to turn away suspicion from any part she might have played in Ramona’s death, why tell me instead of the police and her old friend Lieutenant Blanchard?

  Reflexively, I tucked my hand into my purse to touch my wand. I stared out my windshield, trying to remember exactly what Cheryl had said and how she’d said it. I focused on my memories with my artist’s eye. I tried to remember her face, the way she’d leaned forward, the arch of her eyebrows and the tilt of her head. She was asking for help. She needed help, but nothing about her said she expected to get it. In fact, from the first minute I walked in, her face and her body expressed nothing but contempt.

  She wanted me to tell the story because she didn’t respect me. I was nothing but a Nosey Parker. She would have gotten an earful about that from Blanchard. And because she thought I was just playing around, she thought I was sure to miss something important. Something about the story, or the night of the murder, that Cheryl wanted to keep hidden.

  What is it? I tightened my grip on my wand. How do I find out?

  I ran my mind back over the story and forward again. There was nothing in it I could check. It was all Cheryl’s word about what Ramona had said and done. Except for that detail about the doors, there was nothing to check and nothing to confirm.

  Except. Maybe.

  I let go of my wand and dug down for my cell phone instead. There was one detail in Cheryl’s story that might have left a hole behind. She said she’d paid Ramona five thousand dollars, half of the ten thousand she’d promised. If that was true, the money had to be somewhere.

  It was also the one detail Cheryl Bell didn’t know I had a way to check.

  I hit a speed-dial number and waited while it rang.

  “Anna?” Frank Hawthorne said as soon as he picked up. “What’s up? Did you talk to Cheryl Bell?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “And?” he prompted. I pictured him reaching for a pencil and flipping open a fresh legal pad.

  “Frank, does your friend at the accounting firm owe you any more favors?”

  “Not really. But from your tone, I feel like I might be about to owe him one.”

  “Can you find out if any of Ramona’s accounts got a deposit of five thousand dollars recently?”

  “Like, how recently?” he asked.

  “Like, the day she died.”

  40

  AFTER I HUNG up the phone with Frank, I called Val.

  “How’d it go this morning?” I asked her. “Is there any news about Kristen?”

  “I gave a statement, but it didn’t change anything. They’re still holding her.” Val’s voice was ragged. I suspected she hadn’t slept much. I heard Melissa fussing in the background, which couldn’t be helping.

  “Which means Blanchard thinks he’s got something definite.” The idea sent a shiver through me. Even if Blanchard suspected Kristen was the one who planted the Aldina beads, that couldn’t be enough to arrest her on, even if he did put it together with Kris’s old record. Neither would the scratches on the balcony door, or even the fact that Ruby was still missing (as far as the rest of the world knew).

  But add in the fact that Kristen had so very deliberately lied about where she was going, and then tried so hard to cover up her movements. All that together might be enough for Blanchard to spin into reasonable-sounding suspicion.

  “It’s such a mess, Anna,” croaked Val. “I don’t know how, but somebody must have found out Kristen’s staying here. There are news vans all over the place. There’re reporters camped out on the sidewalk. Roger’s unplugged the house phones. I feel like we’re under siege.”

  “Take Melissa to the cottage,” I told her. “They don’t know about me. You can hide out with the cats.”

  “Thank you! I didn’t want to ask, but . . .” Val paused and there was some shuffling and a gurgle of protest. “Have you heard anything from Kenisha?” she asked me abruptly.

  “Not yet.”

  “How about Julia?”

  “Not a thing. I take it she hasn’t called you either?”

  “No,” said Val. “I’d go talk to her, but . . .”

  “You’re under siege. I know. Look, you take care of you and the baby. I’m downtown. I’ll stop by the bookstore and make sure everything’s okay with Julia.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah. I need to see her anyway.” I needed to get this spell off my back before I, and maybe it, did any more damage. Kenisha was right. Magic and law enforcement should not mix.

  “Thanks, Anna.”

  “What are coven sisters for?” I told her. “And don’t let Alistair give you any guff.”

  “I won’t.” I heard the smile in her voice and felt a rush of relief.

  We hung up and I stashed my phone in my purse. I touched my wand once more, for calm and good luck. I did not like the fact that Blanchard wasn’t letting go of Kristen. It made me itchy. Maybe he was just playing for time, but maybe he really had something. It might even be something new that none of the rest of us had found out about yet. I just had to hope it wasn’t something my magical interference had thrown into his path.

  “One thing at a time, Anna,” I muttered to myself as I pulled my gloves on and hurried down the sidewalk.

  I wasn’t the only one out and about today, though. As I was crossing the square, I recognized Zach, Pam’s assistant, headed in the other direction, carrying two bags bearing the red-and-white logos of a well-known national sandwich chain. I raised my hand and he raised a bag and made a gesture that I assumed meant the boss was really hungry and he had no time to stop and pass the time of day.

  I watched him go and wished that was the extent of my problems.

  Within five minutes, I was repeating that wish with extra emphasis. Because when I got to Midnight Reads, I saw a black-and-white cop cruiser parked right across the street, the regulation distance from the fire hydrant. Kenisha sat behind the steering wheel, staring out the windshield, lost in thought.

  She was so far gone, in fact, that she didn’t even turn her head as I ran up to the car. Not until I pounded on the driver’s-side window, anyway.

  “Britton!�
�� she exclaimed as she brought the window down. “What’s the matter?”

  “That’s what I was going to ask you! Is Julia okay?”

  Kenisha’s mouth twisted up tight. “Oh, yeah. She’s fine.”

  “Then what—”

  I didn’t get any further. “I’m on duty, Britton. You may have noticed the cop car I am sitting in.”

  “You can’t mean Blanchard asked you to stake out Julia?”

  She frowned up at me.

  “Okay. Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I know that. But . . . I mean, everything is okay, right?” I was babbling, but I had alarm bells sounding in my brain, and that always sets off a babble. “I mean, there isn’t a problem with Julia and, you know, anything . . .”

  Like she’s enchanted someone else? Or sent her familiars on a search-and-find errand that’s made more problems, or . . . or you found out about the summoning spell she laid on me . . .

  The possibilities kept on mounting the longer Kenisha kept her hard, suspicious gaze on me. I felt suddenly seasick. I had to stop this. Right now.

  “Listen, Kenisha, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to tell you this, but you should probably know anyway. I’ve been talking to Cheryl Bell and Rachael Forsythe.”

  Kenisha’s frown deepened.

  “Yes. I know. You’re right. But Cheryl told me . . . she told me she was at Ramona’s apartment the night Ramona died. And she said she was there because Ramona had agreed to sell her Ruby. And she said when she couldn’t find the cat right away, she left because she thought it was a setup and she didn’t tell Lieutenant Blanchard because it wasn’t her job to make his life easy for him.” I stopped, out of breath.

  Not anymore, she’d said. It wasn’t her job to make things easy for him anymore.

  “But she’s lying, Kenisha. She can’t have been at Ramona’s, because she didn’t know the balcony doors were open. So she might be doing it to cover for somebody. And I wanted you to know, because I didn’t want you to think I was doing anything behind your back. She also said she’d paid Ramona five thousand dollars for Ruby, but if that’s true, then where’s the money? And I know you’re going to be angry because none of this has anything to do with finding out the connection between Ramona’s death and the true craft, and I’m sorry. And I haven’t heard anything from Julia all day, and now that I see you here I’m even more worried than I was. So I’m going up to see her, unless you really don’t want me to, in which case . . .”

  “You’d probably go anyway?” Kenisha finished for me. Her voice was flat, and my heart sank. At least it did until I saw the tiniest curl at one corner of her mouth. It wasn’t actually a smile, but it was a start.

  “Probably, yeah.”

  “This relationship needs work, Britton.”

  “Again, probably, yeah.” I paused. “I don’t suppose you found those beads on the crime scene photos, did you?”

  Kenisha glared at me. “I don’t suppose you think I’d actually tell you that we didn’t?”

  “I know that you would never tell me anything like that.” Because there are some days when I am actually fairly quick on the uptake.

  “Good. Because I wouldn’t. Just like I wouldn’t tell you that they’re having trouble determining the exact time Ramona died because of the rain, the lousy cold weather, not to mention the spray off the river.”

  “There is no reason I would need to know something like that,” I agreed. “Not that you’d tell me.”

  “No reason at all, because it is absolutely none of your business that it makes this cover-up story of Cheryl Bell’s even more of a problem and, incidentally, messes with Pam Abernathy’s alibi.”

  “So, it all kind of makes things worse.”

  “Yeah, it kind of does.” Kenisha sighed.

  “Sorry.”

  “So am I,” she muttered. “Look, just . . . go see Julia.” She faced forward again. “And when you do, try to get her to come to her senses, will you?”

  That rush of relief I’d felt dropped away so fast my head spun. “About what?”

  “You’ll know when you get in there.”

  “Thanks loads,” I muttered and turned away.

  • • •

  “HELLO, GABRIELLE.” I tried to sound cheerful, or at least normal, as I walked into the bookstore. “Is Julia in today?”

  Gabrielle stopped counting quarters into the cash drawer and glanced toward the back of the shop. “She is, but . . . maybe you should wait before you go back there.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  She glanced toward the pair of harried-looking mothers supervising their pack of kids at the Lego table. “Wendy Forsythe stopped in.”

  Oh.

  “Okay,” I said brightly. “I’ll just have a look at how the murals are holding up, then.”

  Probably I should have listened to Gabrielle and waited. But apparently today was not one for good impulse control. I did have a look at my murals, which were just fine. They hadn’t been up for even a week yet, after all. Then I slowly slipped down the MYSTERY aisle, which I suppose was appropriate, and I came out by the sitting room and the door to Julia’s office. The door was open, but Max and Leo stood squarely in the center of the threshold, ears and tails up and muzzles thrust forward. Clearly, Gabrielle was not the only one who thought I shouldn’t be going in to see Julia yet.

  Wendy Forsythe stood on the other side of the dachshunds. She wore an old-fashioned black dress, and her gray hair was pulled into a tight bun. From this angle, she stood in three-quarters profile, but she didn’t notice me hovering (because that’s better than lurking), because she was busy trying to stare down Julia.

  Julia was on her feet and leaning hard on her walking stick, making sure Wendy did not miss a single hard word she spoke.

  “. . . Wendy, you were not the one who sat with Ramona for hours while she agonized over paying the bills. You were not the one to listen while she worried about what you would do when you found out how short the money was . . .”

  “I supported my sister!” Wendy snapped. “It was my money that started her clinic!”

  “And you never let her forget that for a minute. She was terrified of you.”

  Max whisked around and galloped back to Julia’s side. I took a step forward, but Leo wasn’t having any of it. He raised his ears, his muzzle and his hackles at me.

  “We were sisters,” said Wendy, her voice low and intense. “I loved her.”

  “And because you were her sister, you felt like everything she did reflected on you. You demanded loyalty and discipline from her, just like you did from yourself. Only Ramona had different standards, and you couldn’t cope with that.”

  “I gave her everything she needed!”

  “And in return you wanted everything she had,” Julia replied evenly. “But there are boundaries we do not cross, Wendy. Not even for family.”

  “We look after our own,” said Wendy. “That is the first duty of a witch of the bloodline. Perhaps if you’d remembered that, you and your family would still be on speaking terms.”

  I stared at Leo. I couldn’t help it.

  “Yip,” he told me. Which, of course, got Julia’s attention.

  “Anna!” Julia edged past Wendy and pulled her glasses off. “Has something happened?”

  “Um, well . . . ,” I began, but my eyes flickered uneasily toward Wendy. I couldn’t help it.

  “Oh, no, don’t mind me,” she said, and the words were so dry and brittle they practically crumbled as she spoke. “I was just leaving.”

  “We’ll finish this conversation later,” began Julia, but Wendy turned on her with a gaze as hard and sharp as broken glass.

  “No, we won’t. The next accusation you or any of your people make against my family will be in court or in front of the Council of Coveners, because I am done with your interference. Do yo
u understand me?”

  “I have always understood you, Wendy.”

  But Wendy was busy turning that glass-hard glower on me. “As for you, Anna Britton, I asked you to stay away from my niece. Now I hear you are egging on her worst instincts—”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Forsythe, but it was Rachael who asked me to search her mother’s apartment.”

  “Did she ask you to invite the police?” demanded Wendy. “Did she ask you to make accusations about someone breaking the wards in order to interfere with the official investigations? Did she ask . . .”

  Leo’s hackles went up. I kept waiting for Julia to pick him up or give him a command to back down, but she didn’t do either.

  “You will be careful how you speak to my apprentice, Wendy Forsythe.”

  The two women stared old, sharp daggers at each other. Leo and Max stationed themselves at Julia’s side. Max’s lip curled back, showing a row of white teeth. I was frozen in place. What should I do? What could I do?

  “Julia?” called a voice from the front of the shop. “Everything okay back there?”

  It was Gabrielle. It was a normal question, asked out of normal concern, but just then it was so sudden and surprising, we all blinked. Dachshunds included.

  “We’re fine, Gabrielle,” Julia called back. “Unless there was something else?” she said to Wendy.

  Max growled long and low in his doggy throat.

  “I’ve said all I have to say.” Wendy turned and marched out the door, but her anger stayed behind, as strong as any Vibe I’ve ever felt.

  “What was—” I began, but Julia cut me off.

  “It was nothing, Anna,” she said, and I found myself really sympathizing with Kenisha’s hatred of that word. “When you get to be as old as I am, your life develops a great deal of background noise.” But even though she was trying hard to dismiss what had just happened, I didn’t miss how carefully she lowered herself back into her chair. “I’m assuming you came here because you have some news?”

  Where do I even start? I waded gingerly through the dachshunds so I could stand next to her desk. Julia gestured me toward the office chair, and I sat after I removed the pile of paperbacks to the corner of her desk.