The Trouble with Magic

by Madelyn Alt

  Oh-My-God. "Uh, no."

  "Now, why do you say that? Honestly, Margaret, you'd think you were ashamed to claim us as family."

  "Mom, I can't bring him to dinner!" The look on her face told me she expected an explanation. I bent my head to the task of properly shredding the potato I had in hand. "I don't know him well enough… I mean, that's something you reserve for someone you know you're getting serious about, and I just…"

  "It's a simple family dinner. Just a friendly little meal. I don't think that's too much for a mother to ask of her oldest daughter."

  I swallowed hard as guilt played havoc with my already queasy stomach. What was it about mothers that made them such experts at manipulation? "Well… I'll think about it."

  "You'll ask him?"

  I sighed. "I'll ask him."

  "Wonderful. We'll expect you on Wednesday at seven o'clock."

  I sighed inwardly, resigned to my fate, and I wondered if poor Tom had any idea what he had gotten himself into by the simple act of asking me out.

  "Speaking of Dad," I said, changing the subject before I got myself into any more messes, "where is he?"

  Her mouth tightened, passing judgment. "Oh, you know your father. He's probably out in his workshop, fiddling with something that's too old to be fixed." She looked down into the pot of potatoes, then at the potato I held in my hands, and her mouth twisted slightly. She stretched out her hand to cover my own and stop my abuse of the poor potato. "Why don't you give that to me, Margaret, and go out and say hello to your father before you leave."

  Her hands were rough, work-worn, capable hands. I wondered how long it had been since she'd taken a moment to soothe them with lotion, how long since she had yielded to the temptation of a long bubblebath. It wasn't her way, I knew, but I couldn't help wondering if an occasional self-pampering might have softened her outlook toward others. Like me, or Dad, or Grandpa Gordon. The only two people I knew to have escaped my mother's critical eye were my brother Marshall, and Mel.

  Pushing away that thought because dwelling on it helped no one, I gladly yielded the peeler to my mother and gave her a tiny smile. "Thanks, Mom. I'll do that."

  "I'll call you to remind you about Wednesday."

  I had no doubt.

  My shoes crunched on the finely crushed limestone drive as I left the house for my dad's workshop. Mixed in with that sound and the whisper of dry leaves, I could hear the retreating electric whirr of Grandpa's motor-chair and his trademark call of "Tally-hoooo!" I turned to look, but he was already tooling up the road, an electric orange flag announcing his presence to the motorists of the neighborhood.

  Shaking my head but smiling all the same, I returned my attention to the old barn. The door stood open, shadow reaching beyond, a cave my father had always holed up in when hiding from my mother. In the doorway I paused to give my eyes a moment to adjust.

  "Hey, girl. Don't see you enough around here these days."

  My dad moved out of the interior shadows, wiping his hands on a dingy old rag. He looked like a refugee from an L.L. Bean catalog in a light, buffalo plaid wool jacket, loose-fitting jeans, and a pair of beat-up old chukkas, but he could pass for ten years younger than his fifty-plus years and that wasn't a bad thing.

  I slung my arm affectionately about his neck and planted a resounding kiss on his cheek. "Yuck. Sawdust. Hi, Dad."

  He swiped his hand down his lightly stubbled cheek almost sheepishly. "Sorry. I've been working. Want to see?"

  "Sure."

  He turned and led the way over to his worktable. On it rested a two-inch-wide cross section of what was once a massive tree. The slab had been sanded until its irregularly shaped surface was as smooth as a sheet of glass. I trailed my fingers across it, awed by the hundreds of darker brown rings that gave proof of the passage of time. There was something reassuring about it. Life goes on, no matter what.

  "Have a seat?"

  "I can't stay long," I apologized, but sliding onto a tall stool anyway. "Date tonight. Don't worry, I've already cleared it with Mom."

  He picked up a can of polyurethane. Popping the top with an old screwdriver, he began to slowly stir the viscous substance, purposefully, like a cow working over its cud. "Probably for the better. You know how your mother can be."

  "I know." I indicated the slab of tree trunk with a toss of my chin. "So, what's that going to be?"

  He patted the top of the wood, dusting off a speck of imaginary fluff. "Just a little project I've been working on. With retirement coming up—"

  I clucked my tongue. "Don't be silly. You're too young."

  "I am not. And believe me, I'm starting to think sooner is better."

  My father was an accountant at Sea Breeze Enterprises, a manufacturer of pleasure craft. Speedboats, pontoon boats, and great, big, ultramanly bass boats. The company had been around a long time, the business bolstered by the many lakes and rivers in the northern part of the state. Dad had been a part of the company for as long as I could remember. "Is there something wrong? Did something happen?"

  I crossed my fingers, a childish charm against a worrisome possibility. I wasn't certain I could take anything more being wrong.

  He shrugged, frowning thoughtfully into the can as he stirred. "Nothing full retirement and a home in the Florida Keys couldn't cure. I'm getting old, honey, and business doesn't take kindly to old people. I don't know, maybe I am too old-fashioned. Too set in my ways. And I find I don't really care to accommodate all the changes the world is going through. Hey, so what do you think of this thing? Picture it with a couple of good coats of marine polyurethane, some stylized legs… I was thinking it might make a good coffee table or garden table or something. Rustic."

  He set down the can, dipped a well-used but squeaky-clean brush in the clear goop, and began applying it in long, light strokes to the wood. Even though his face betrayed nothing, all at once I knew what this project meant to him. A possible future. Work he loved. Fulfillment. Pride. "I think it's awesome, Dad."

  He looked up. For one brief, shining moment I saw joy and surprise and awe lightening the world-weary lines on his face. Then he recovered himself and bent his head to his task once again. "It might work, then. Perhaps it would provide your mother and me with a little extra income… when I do retire. Something to think about, anyway."

  "You never did answer, you know. Have there been problems at work?"

  He grunted, his face tightening slightly. "Only because that fool Foley is letting his son run us into the ground. An old fool and a young fool… two sadder things a body will be hard pressed to find. Painful to watch, after all these years."

  Something clicked in my memory. "That wouldn't be Roger Foley, would it?"

  "You know him?"

  I thought of the attentive puppy with the roving eyes at graveside. "Not really. I've heard his name, that's all." I paused, not sure how to put my thoughts into words. "I understand Roger Foley is engaged to the daughter of the woman who was killed this week."

  His brow furrowed. "That would make her related to your new boss, wouldn't it?"

  "Her niece."

  He went back to stroking on the polyurethane. At length, he said, "Your mother doesn't like your new job much, you know. I expect she'll be voicing her opinion soon."

  I had no doubt. God knows my mother wasn't the type to hold her tongue for long.

  "She's heard rumors," he went on in his slow, methodical way. "They make your mother uneasy."

  "Mom forgets that I'm old enough to take care of myself."

  "She feels better being involved in your life."

  I shifted uncomfortably, caught between my claustrophobic relationship with my mother and the need to be my own person. There was a time when my mother had involved herself so deeply into my thought processes that I didn't know where her viewpoints ended and mine began. When I realized that, I'd moved out of my parents' house for good. That was eight years ago, right after my first and only engagement (Joby Turner, ancient history) had ende
d on a sour note and a bed of lies and recrimination. It took me a long time to rediscover myself. To figure out who I was and what I thought about the world at large. I wasn't about to go back to the way things were. "Mom needs to get a life of her own and stop poking her nose into mine."

  My dad nodded sagely. "That she does."

  "What about you? Do you think I'm making a mistake?"

  He didn't look up. He just kept stroking that brush back and forth. "You know, I've always thought you had a pretty good head on your shoulders. If you feel comfortable with what you're doing, well, then, that's good enough for me."

  That's my dad for you. Supportive with a capital S. "Thanks, Dad."

  "So, what do you make of all this hubbub? It's quite the story. Murder just doesn't happen every day around these parts."

  "I don't know what to think about it—except that the town boys seem to have made up their minds that Felicity is responsible."

  "You don't think so."

  I shook my head. "I've only known Felicity a short while, but I've come to know her better than you might expect. No, I don't think she did it. Besides, I've been doing a little digging and it seems to me that the late Mrs. Harding wasn't exactly the most beloved person in town."

  He stopped in midstroke and looked up at me, his eyes sharp. "Digging? What kind of digging?"

  I shrugged nonchalantly. "Just asking a few questions of people who knew her."

  The worry lines etching his forehead deepened. "Do you think that's wise?"

  I slipped off my stool. "Someone has to," I said brashly as I stretched my arms around his shoulders for a good-bye hug. "Someone has to make them see. It might as well be me."

  His troubled gaze told me he wasn't so sure.

  * * * *

  Right up to the last minute, I thought I was going to go through with my… appointment… with Tom Fielding.

  As the clock ticked closer to the moment of no return, I got a bad case of the jitters that no amount of feel-good affirmations (anything from: You are a beautiful, desirable woman, to: There's nothing to worry about. He's not interested in you. This is your chance to let him know what Felicity is really like ...) could abolish. With fifteen minutes to spare and my fingers trembling, I dialed Tom's home phone with the intention of begging off.

  No answer.

  I left a message on the machine, hoping against all hope that I'd managed to catch him still at home. In the shower, or with his head buried in the closet looking for shoes, or whatever it was men did in the last minutes before heading off on a date.

  Appointment.

  Whatever.

  I spent the last ten minutes squirming on the edge of my seat and feeling like the world's biggest chicken. I switched off my lights, my tension mounting.

  Countdown… Five minutes… Four… Please let me have reached him in time… Three… On the other hand, there was still time to change my mind… Two… He might have to wait a minute or two while I change, but maybe he wouldn't mind so very much… One…

  Right on cue, there was a knock at my door.

  My heart leapt to my throat and stayed there, throbbing madly.

  Get up, a voice chided in my ear. What's the matter? Are you crazy?

  I must be crazy. What was I thinking?

  He's handsome. Strong. A good man. A police officer, for heaven's sake. And he likes you. He said so. He might even be Catholic, but you won't know if you don't ask. What are you waiting for?

  Caught in the grips of indecision, I clutched the arms of my chair. My knuckles went white, my face was hot, and I was torn between the need to protect myself and the desire to open the door, fling myself into his arms, and kiss his lips off.

  Of course, he was a cop. That might be considered assault. That probably wouldn't be good.

  The knock came again, louder this time. "Maggie? Are you there?" Long pause. "Maggie?"

  Mother Mary, even his voice gave me the shivers. No, it most definitely would not be a good idea to mix business and pleasure with this man.

  I sat on my hands and closed my eyes, and eventually he went away, leaving me alone in my dark apartment to wallow in the throes of regret and missed opportunities.

  "Well, that's that," I said to the room at large. Thankfully, no one answered.

  For a moment I sat there in the deepening shadow, wondering what I should do next… until the quiet in the room unnerved me like a predator that loomed just beyond my line of vision. A presence I could feel but not see. One day had passed since that strange voice called out to me from the depths of my apartment. Twenty-four hours. Not nearly enough time to reassure me that the voice I heard was nothing to worry about. It had been easy to ignore when my thoughts were wrapped up in a certain all-too-available hunk of male, but impossible now that I was so undeniably, irrevocably alone. I jumped up to flip on the overhead light, but that just cast long shadows that somehow seemed even more threatening than complete darkness. Then I remembered that I was entirely alone in this nightmare apartment house. Steff was long gone on her date with Dr. Dan, and the apartment on the ground floor still had not been rented out. Suddenly, calling off my date (appointment!) seemed like the stupidest thing in the world to do, and it was far too late to change my mind.

  About Deputy Fielding, at least.

  I grabbed my purse off the chair by the door and made my getaway, slinking out of my apartment before whatever force had poked a hole in this dimension found its way back. Christine waited at the curb, a familiar port in the storm. I sheltered there a moment, gazing uneasily back at the old Victorian exterior of my apartment house. Soon a time would come when I would have to face my fears and overcome the urge to skedaddle out of the apartment every time I was Home Alone. If sweet little MacCaulay Culkin could do it, surely so could I.

  Soon.

  But not tonight.

  I took a single deep breath to clear my mind and turned the key in the ignition, making my way into the silent night.

  Chapter Twelve

  I drove for hours without a destination in mind. In a town as small as Stony Mill, that took quite some doing. After the third go-round of driving up the street my parents lived on, I came to my senses. If I didn't vary my pattern, old Mrs. Henderson was going to call the police. Having just ditched one member of our illustrious force, the last thing I wanted was to be ratted out by my parents' nosy next-door neighbor.

  I found myself traveling down the Victoria Park Road

  without knowing how I'd gotten there. Once committed, though, I wouldn't have turned back for the world. When I'd first started asking questions of those who knew Isabella Harding, I'd been acting only on behalf of Felicity. That had always been my intention. My experience at the cemetery had made that stronger, but more, it had spurred an insatiable thirst to see justice done. Whatever the poor woman's faults had been, she didn't deserve to die, and her murderer didn't deserve to get off scot-free.

  I drove past the fenced-in woods I knew to be Felicity's, paying more attention as the rough limestone barrier wall was exchanged for tall iron spikes. I slowed my car as I approached the imposing security gate, taking note of the difference in style. Where Felicity's had been curlicued and elegant, the Harding gate looked more like the portcullis of some ancient keep—strong, commanding, and ultimately impenetrable.

  I cut my lights and crept into the drive until my car was nose to nose with the gate. I hadn't met any cars in either direction on the six-plus-mile drive up the road, and with luck no one would come along while I played sleuth. The Harding property possessed far fewer trees near the road, and the drive made a straight line to the front of the house; I had a clear view. High-watt floodlights lit up the entire area like a used car lot. They made spying on the Hardings extraordinarily easy.

  Whatever I'd expected, this wasn't it.

  The difference between The Gables and Isabella's house was startling. Grand vs. grandiose. Whereas Felicity's home resembled something plucked out of a British tour guide, Isabella's might
have been plucked from anywhere where there was a surplus of money and a shortage of taste. From the glass walls of the ultracontemporary, to Italianate villa, to New England shingling, the elements combined in a strange mishmash of architectural styles—like whoever had designed it couldn't make up their mind—and looked completely out of place in the Indiana countryside. Although, to be fair, I didn't think it looked as though it belonged anywhere.

  No one appeared to be home.

  Disappointed, I threw Christine into reverse (she gave only a single clunk of protest) and backed out of the drive, flipping my lights back on and letting her slowly idle forward down the road while I took in details. The woods were thick between the properties, the trees skirted with dense underbrush and ferns. I couldn't help remembering Marcus's comment about a flash of color as he and Felicity had approached Isabella's. Had someone been out there, watching from the woods? It was possible. But where had he gone from there? Through the trees to Felicity's? That seemed so risky. But… maybe a person who had sunk to the depths of murder was willing to take a few risks. Maybe he was so far gone that less consequential risks paled in comparison.

  Yes, murder could make a person reckless. That made sense. And reckless people made mistakes by default. It was only human.

  What mistakes had this murderer made?

  Curiosity gnawed at me. What I really wanted to do was to explore the woods between the two houses… but not now. Killer on the loose or not, I wasn't about to brave these dark woods with my wits as my only weapon. Leave that to those poor hapless victims from the Gothic novels my mom used to hide in her underwear drawer, the ones whose covers portrayed beautiful young women wandering about some moldering castle, garbed in nothing more than a sheer nightie and carrying a flickering candle to light her way. Better to come back during the day when trees looked like trees and shadows couldn't hide homicidal maniacs.

  Crazy I might be. Stupid I was not.