Charmed Bones

by Carolyn Haines

  In the light of the full moon, the trees were twisted into grotesque shapes, leafless and barren of all fruit. Not a good omen. I recalled the sensation of something powerful and evil watching me. I felt it again, that disquieting sensation of someone with malevolent intent spying, hoping for a chance to do harm.

  Gertrude Strom came full-blown into my imagination. My nemesis. The woman who held a ridiculous grudge against me because of some imagined slight from my mother decades back—but one who had also tried repeatedly to kill me. She was no joke, and she was still on the lam. While there hadn’t been reports of a sighting of her in several weeks, I knew she was still stalking me. She’d left a message to that effect.

  Feeling exposed out in the open, I ran into the apple orchard after the colony of high-stepping cats. Anything was better than standing like a perfect target in the open field. Or so I thought. I darted through the trees, dodging the crooked and grasping branches. This brought to mind the terrifying apple tree scene as Dorothy journeyed to the Emerald City. I never should have started that movie and I wouldn’t have if I’d known I would be consorting with witches.

  I nearly tripped over a pretty little calico who’d stopped in the path. As I stumbled forward, trying to slow my momentum and regain my balance, I saw something lying on the ground. Something about the size of a body.

  Whatever it was, dressed all in black, didn’t move. In the semibrightness of the full moon, I slowly advanced. What if the thing began to crawl toward me, jaws snapping? What if it was playing ’possum until I was close enough to grab?

  “Damn,” I whispered as I tried to slow my pounding heart. Though I wanted to turn tail and run, I advanced. Very carefully. The cats formed a semicircle around whatever it was and waited. “Hello?”

  There was no movement from the body, for, indeed, it was a human form.

  I moved toward it, praying that I was wrong, that it wasn’t Trevor Musgrove. But my wishes were not to be answered. The owner of Musgrove Manor was stretched out beneath an apple tree. His skin was a faint shade of blue and his face was contorted in a rictus of pain. In his hand he grasped one perfect apple—missing a single bite.

  7

  The cats guarded the body, all paying homage to the fallen artist. The scene was completely eerie and it took all of my courage not to run screaming from the orchard. I knelt beside Trevor. No pulse. His body was cool to the touch, but no there was no rigor mortis.

  Pluto walked up to the corpse and put a paw on Trevor’s cheek, some type of feline benediction. The cats queued up again and began the march back to the manor. They had done their duty and informed me of Trevor’s death. While I couldn’t fully believe that the Harrington sisters had witchy powers, I needed no convincing that the cats had brought me to this place to find Trevor’s body.

  I snapped a photo and texted it, with a message, to Coleman.

  He called immediately. “I’m on the way,” he said. “I’ll pick up Doc. Are you sure he’s dead?”

  “He is positively, absolutely, undeniably, and reliably dead.” I clapped a hand over my mouth. The words from The Wizard of Oz had come unbidden from my lips. “I’m sorry, Coleman.”

  “Are you ill?” he asked.

  “No. And Trevor really is, regrettably, dead.” I meant it. Trevor was a talented artist, but he’d also been an intriguing man. I would have liked to know him better—not romantically, but as a friend.

  “We’re on the way.”

  “I’ll meet you at the manor. I left Tinkie there with the witches, Kitten, and the Anti-Satan League. The protesters were keeping their distance, but I’d better get back before that changes.”

  The cats were on the move, and the last of the procession disappeared down the trail. I was alone in the apple orchard with a dead man, and possibly something else. I felt in my coat pocket where I’d wisely stashed my gun. In our last case, I’d defended my injured partner as she lay in a field behind her wrecked car. I’d winged the man trying to kill us. I hadn’t taken him out, but I’d driven him away. I could—and would—defend myself.

  I had the sense that whatever lurked out there, just beyond my vision, was something I couldn’t kill with a regular bullet. Though I was reluctant to leave the body, I had to get back to the manor to be sure Tinkie hadn’t been overrun by protesters.

  The apple orchard, which I remembered as a place of beauty, had become a source of dark enchantment. The gnarled branches of the apple trees reached toward the moon, a skeletal monster grasping at the lunar glow.

  Movement to my right made me spin around, gun drawn. When I got my hands on Pluto I was going to have him fitted for a harness and leash. Had I not been chasing after him, I wouldn’t be in this predicament.

  In the bright moonlight, I didn’t see anything but the dark shapes of the tree trunks. Movement to my left made me whirl in that direction. Before I could even react, I heard a voice behind me.

  “So he’s dead.” A black-clad figure lifted both arms and the cape he wore—outlined by the moon—created the vivid silhouette of Count Dracula. It took all of my restraint not to plug him.

  “Who are you?” I demanded.

  He whipped the cape around him and stepped forward. “I’m—”

  “One more step and you’ll be full of lead.”

  He halted, obviously a man who took a woman’s threat seriously. “I’m Malvik, the leader of the Harrington coven.”

  This was going to be news to the sisters. They didn’t strike me as women who needed a leader of the male persuasion. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Following you. It was quite an interesting procession. The cats, you, now the body.”

  I motioned for him to get in front of me and start walking. I intended to turn him over to Coleman and let the sheriff sort the facts. I could clearly see that there would be no midnight rendezvous with my pistol-packing lawman tonight. I was beginning to believe the sisters had put some kind of anti-romance curse on me. Maybe I would never get laid again. The thought made me push Malvik faster down the path.

  “Who are you, really?” I asked. Malvik couldn’t be a real name.

  “The warlock of the Harrington coven. Malvik is the name I go by now. My past has been erased. I renounced my birth name and birthright and was reborn a lord of Hecate, the goddess of the moon.”

  “You’d better can that mumbo jumbo when you talk to the sheriff or you’ll end up in the state mental institution, and that isn’t a place any person wants to be.”

  “You dupes of corporate religion don’t have a clue.”

  “Keep walking.” I wasn’t about to debate religion with a guy who looked strikingly like Bella Lugosi in his signature role.

  When we arrived at the manor, I was relieved to see Coleman pulling up to the front of the stone manor house with Doc Sawyer in the front seat. DeWayne Dattilo, his chief and only deputy, followed in a second car. I’d heard rumors Coleman had gotten a budget bump to hire another deputy, but so far no action. He needed about ten more men to adequately patrol the county.

  Coleman stepped out of the car and for a moment I thought he was going to sweep me against him and plant one right on my lips. Somehow, we managed not to lurch together like two desperate magnets. “Who is this?” Coleman asked.

  “Tell him.” I nudged Malvik. It was such a better story coming from the man in the cape.

  Malvik went through his whole ruler-of-the-empire speech. Coleman’s response was to stuff him in the back of the patrol car. “You were at the scene of a dead body. I’ll need to question you at the sheriff’s office.”

  I felt relief once Malvik was confined in the car. I had a moment to speak with Coleman. “Trevor is in the apple orchard. Looks like he was either frightened to death or poisoned by an apple. I didn’t see Snow White or any of the dwarves.” I had to tell him about what else might be lingering there. “Coleman, I think someone else is there, too. Be careful.”

  “Will do.” He unholstered his gun. “Keep the sisters here. D
eWayne, Doc, and I will handle the body.”

  I approached the sisters and Tinkie. The protesters had scattered the moment Coleman drove up. Surprisingly, there was no sign of Cece yet. I had a few questions for the witches while we waited for Coleman to collect the body. “So, Malvik is your leader?” I could see the outline of the strange man in the backseat of Coleman’s car. At least he hadn’t turned into a bat and flown away.

  “No.” Charity spoke up.

  “Is he part of your coven?” I couldn’t believe I was saying the word coven.

  “He is, but he isn’t the leader.”

  “Who’s the leader?”

  “In a matriarchal society, there’s no need for a leader,” Faith said. “We share responsibilities. We’re each an integral part of the whole.”

  “And yet Malvik is a part of your … group.”

  “He is. A lesser part,” Faith said. “He just refuses to accept his place.” She laughed and the others, including Tinkie, joined in.

  “Women don’t need a man, Sarah Booth.” Tinkie spoke rebellion. She was the Daddy’s Girl, the female raised to please men and skillfully manipulate them so that they met her every desire. Men had been created to cater to the whims of the Daddy’s Girl.

  “If you want to get pregnant you need a man,” I snapped. The witches were brainwashing my friend. “Stop this, Tinkie. We have enough going on without kicking up a gender war in Sunflower County.”

  “Women are powerful. We need to own our power and stop being pushed around by men.” Tinkie had no intention of backing down. It was as if our roles had been magically reversed. She was the rebel, the feminist, the recanter of the sacred doctrine of Big Daddy and the male provider. I was now the defender of a doctrine I didn’t believe in.

  “Did you know Malvik was on the dairy property?” I switched tactics before I was routed and sent home.

  “Yes, he’s staying in town but he came out earlier to help us prepare for the moon dance. Which has been pretty much thwarted.” Faith was not happy with the turn of events. “Those protesters. Now, Trevor’s dead. We haven’t been able to finish the ceremony.”

  “How did you know Trevor was dead?” I hadn’t said that out loud to anyone but Coleman.

  “We know things,” Hope said, looking a little annoyed.

  It wasn’t a satisfactory answer, but I didn’t have the legal power to force her to tell the truth.

  “They’re psychic,” Tinkie said. Her awe was showing.

  “Or they’re eavesdroppers.” I looked around for Pluto. It was time to leave. The protesters were gone and I could take Tinkie home and wait until tomorrow to head over to the sheriff’s office to get the final report on Trevor from Coleman. It was clear no one at the manor was overly concerned about his death.

  “What were you three doing this afternoon?” I asked the sisters. The answers came from Hope, Faith, and then Charity.

  “Napping.”

  “Mani-pedi here at home.”

  “Reading.”

  “You were all together?” I asked.

  “We were in our rooms,” Hope said. “That’s one reason we can share the manor. There’s enough space so that we can each build our own world, enjoy our own privacy. We’re sisters, but we don’t have to be together every moment of every day.”

  So they had no alibis. The first thing was to wait for a cause of death. If Trevor had a heart condition, he could have seen Malvik flitting around the orchard and suffered a heart attack. “Coleman will be in touch, I’m sure.”

  “Where will they take … the body?” Hope blinked as if she might cry.

  “You can call the sheriff’s office and ask. There’ll be an autopsy.”

  Faith stood and stretched. “We’ll have a service for him, of course.”

  “There are no Musgrove relatives?”

  “None he told us about,” Hope said. “He has a computer and he gave me the password. I’ll print out his address book for the sheriff.”

  “I’m sure Coleman would appreciate that.”

  “What’s the issue between you and the lawman?” Faith asked bluntly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sparks fly but no fire. Erectile dysfunction? Frozen womb? What?”

  The Delaney women did have a long history of strange womb disorders, from tilted to spastic, with a few Fallopian tube kinks thrown in. But that wasn’t common knowledge. “That’s none of your business.”

  Tinkie came forward with a small beautiful silk cloth bag. “It’s a charm, Sarah Booth. The sisters made it just for you at my request. Put it around your neck and wear it. The obstacles in your path will clear. I got it for you and Coleman.”

  Because it was Tinkie, I took the little sack, which was surprisingly heavy. “What’s in here, chicken feet and toad lips?”

  “Herbs, a quartz rock, some Apache tears, and magical charms.” Hope smiled. “Soon you and the handsome sheriff will form a union.”

  In that instant, I understood completely the lure the witches held for Tinkie. If only life could be impacted by a charm or a potion or a spell. If only good things could be made manifest out of desire and good intentions. Tinkie wanted a baby, and she would shower one with love. She would raise a human capable of helping mankind. How magnificent it would be if those emotions, desires, and needs could create a pregnancy for her. But that couldn’t happen. Wishes and magic couldn’t override biology.

  “Thank you, Tinkie.”

  “If you throw it away, I’ll know.” She took it from me and put it around my neck. “Humor me. Just wear it. And when Coleman comes calling, don’t get in your own way. Let him take the lead. Men like that.”

  “I thought Wiccans had no use for men.”

  “Oh, we have plenty of use for them, and they all love how we use them,” Charity said, her laughing blue eyes a match for Tinkie’s. “We don’t need men, but we do enjoy them. Or at least a few.” There was a wistful tone in her voice that made me wonder if she’d left a true love behind on the path to becoming a witch.

  “We have to go.” I had to talk to Tinkie. It couldn’t wait.

  I captured Pluto, who was none the worse for wear for all of his adventures, and navigated past the ambulance and cruisers to get to the road. The only sign of the protesters were a few homemade posters left on the ground. I stopped and picked them up. I hated litterers, and I needed a moment to think how to broach what I had to say to Tinkie. Direct and frontal. She deserved no less.

  When we were on the road, I turned away from Zinnia and Hilltop and headed toward the Mississippi River. “Tinkie, we need—”

  “No, we don’t. I need to talk. I owe you an apology, Sarah Booth. I’ve been a terrible partner. I’ve shut you out and focused on my desire for a child. That’s behind me. I’m ready to work on the case, and in fact, I found out a lot of facts about the Harringtons while you were stumbling over poor Trevor’s body.”

  If only all hard talks could be so easy. “Great. What did you find out?”

  “Charity and Hope ran the school in Lafayette, but Faith is new on the scene. In fact, she isn’t a full sister, but a half sister. Different father. And she was raised in Florida, not Louisiana. Harrington isn’t her real last name. She took it as a legal name when she found her sisters.”

  “So the Harrington mother had a child and what? Put her up for adoption? Gave her away? What?”

  Tinkie leaned toward me. “She was abducted! She’s the oldest child and Mrs. Harrington, who was Mrs. Marsh at the time, lived in Lake City, Florida. The abduction of Faith, who was then Ophelia, broke up the marriage. The police never found a single suspect in the abduction. Mrs. Marsh moved to Lafayette, where she was a public school teacher, married Ed Harrington, and had two more daughters.”

  “That’s tragic. Why was Faith stolen?”

  Tinkie shook her head. “I guess the woman who took her wanted a baby badly enough to steal one.”

  Oh, this was a dark path, because Tinkie had almost done the same. “
I’m glad she found her sisters.”

  “And her connection to the Wiccan heritage. The Harrington family has practiced Wicca since the 1700s. Some of their relatives burned in the great witch burnings in Germany and some were hanged in Salem.”

  Tinkie had obviously taken in the whole history of witchcraft at the Harringtons’ knees. “My timeline on witchy doings is a little … nonexistent. Could you fill me in?”

  “In the 1500s and 1600s a lot of people were executed, mostly burned, for practicing witchcraft. In Germany, the death rate was highest, but the witch hysteria spread all across Europe, including the British Isles and France. Lots of people died, including some of the Harrington ancestors.”

  “But were they witches?”

  “Yes, but not bad witches. Not the kind who consort with Satan.”

  “That’s comforting.” Sarcasm dripped off every syllable.

  Tinkie sighed. “You have a big chip where the Harringtons are concerned. It’s getting really tedious.”

  “I’m sorry.” And I was. Tinkie needed to believe in magic. In so many ways, she was like the fairy-tale princess whose Prince Charming would always come riding over the horizon to save her. That was her life pattern, and it left her free to believe in charms and potions and spells. She’d retained some of the things that made childhood so wonderful. Those cherished beliefs could also make adulthood painful, but that was a train I couldn’t stop.

  “It’s okay. But enough of that. If I’m pregnant, I am. If I’m not, I’m not. Let’s find out what the Harringtons are really up to, and who killed Trevor Musgrove. I was hoping to model for him. I would have been a real Botticelli model with my baby bump. But now I need for you to take me home.”

  I turned the car back toward town and dropped Tinkie at the front door of Hilltop. Oscar’s car was nowhere in sight, but Tinkie said she was tired. The day had stretched for at least seventy-two hours, or so it seemed. I was tired myself. It seemed a lifetime ago I was popping corn and watching my favorite movie of all time.

  Tinkie waved goodbye from her doorstep and Pluto shifted to the front seat when I started home. The cat intently watched the scenery flash by, and I wondered if it was because he felt guilty for making me give chase earlier or if his thoughts were somewhere else. It was impossible to tell a cat’s motive.