Renovation Spell

by Amy Boyles

  Malene scoffed. “And probably for disposing of bodies.”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions. What else does she have here?”

  “Ammonia and bleach,” Malene said triumphantly. “Everyone knows that if you combine those two chemicals, it can be toxic.”

  “Let me guess—to a dead body?”

  Malene harrumphed. “Exactly.”

  “I don’t know, Malene,” I said uneasily.

  “Let’s get the lid off the barrel. That’ll prove everything, I know it.”

  The steel barrel’s lid was pushed down hard. There was no way it could be opened simply with our hands. “Got a crowbar on you?”

  “Oh look,” she said, flashing her light in the corner. “There’s one right here.”

  There was. Sitting atop a stack of old newspapers lay a crowbar. “Lucky us.”

  “Very lucky.” She waddled over, grabbed it and handed it to me. “You get to do the honors.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you’re young and strong.”

  “I suppose you have a point.” I turned off my flashlight and settled it in my purse. “Okay. Here goes nothing.”

  I positioned the end of the crowbar under the rim of the lid and pushed down. At first, the lid didn’t budge, so I pushed down harder and felt it give.

  Fear zippered down my spine. It felt like a tornado of butterflies zoomed about in my stomach. My fingers trembled, and for a moment my mind clouded with fear of what we would see when we opened the barrel.

  “You’re taking too long,” Malene snipped.

  “Fine,” I snapped. “I’ll open it up.”

  With my eyes closed, I gripped the lid and yanked.

  Malene gasped.

  I opened my eyes and saw another pair of eyes staring up at me. I screamed and dropped the lid. It hit the barrel and fell off, clattering onto the tile floor.

  Malene screamed, throwing up her arms.

  Then a voice sounded from behind us. “Find what you’re looking for?”

  I whirled around. Malene did the same, her light flashing on Lynn. She stood on the back porch. Lynn wore black from head to foot, and her lips were painted a deep red. She crossed her arms and glared at us.

  “Well? Did you,” she repeated, “find what you’re looking for?”

  I pointed to the barrel. “You’re a murderer. I knew it. I knew you were a murderer.” With trembling fingers, I pulled my phone from my purse. “I’m calling Tuney Sluggs right now. You’re going to pay for killing Knight.”

  Lynn scoffed. Then she reached between Malene and me and pulled the body from the barrel.

  I screamed again, and Lynn snapped, “Stop screaming. Look at what you’re yelling about.”

  I leaned over to look at the thing but couldn’t.

  “For goodness’ sake,” Lynn said, revealing a large baby doll. “It’s only a doll. Now, I think y’all need to explain what you’re doing here.”

  I shot Malene a worried look. Neither of us spoke.

  “Otherwise I’m calling the cops.”

  Looks like we had some explaining to do.

  Chapter 15

  “We thought that you’d stuffed Knight’s body in the barrel,” I explained.

  Lynn’s eyes flared. She stared at me for a moment, looking completely confused that I would think such a thing.

  “You’re kidding me.”

  Malene shook her head. “You were doing some suspicious things today.”

  Lynn flipped on the back porch light before stepping past us into the house. She turned around. “Well. Y’all coming?”

  “Are you gonna call the police?” Malene asked.

  Lynn shook her head. “No. I understand that y’all are just concerned about what happened to Knight. I’ll tell you everything that I know. Just come sit. I’ll put on a pot of coffee, too.”

  “I’ll be up all night if I drink coffee this late,” Malene complained.

  I nudged her with my elbow. “I think, under the circumstances, we should just do as she says.”

  “Okay,” Malene grumbled.

  We sat at the antique kitschy gold-flecked table while Lynn worked. She talked while she spooned grounds into the machine.

  “I have a collection of dolls that I decided to store away. Knight always joked and called them cursed, so I was just going to put them in a barrel and place them in the basement.”

  Malene drummed her fingers on the table. “What about the chemicals?”

  “Oh, I bought the pool stuff for a friend who couldn’t find any, and the others are basic cleaning chemicals.”

  I hiked a brow as if to say, See? I knew those chemicals didn’t seem to be the sort for destroying a dead body.

  “Hmm,” was all Malene said.

  Lynn finished filling the coffee machine, and she turned to us, resting her back against the counter’s ledge. “But I suppose y’all want to discuss Knight and my problems with him.”

  “You did a lot of finger-pointing the other night,” I said.

  Lynn snatched a box of Teddy Grahams from the counter and slowly started crunching on the little bear-shaped cookies, or crackers or whatever you want to call them. Graham crackers are called crackers, but they’re too sweet to be real crackers. They’re more the flavor of a cookie, so when graham is molded into a bear shape, I suppose that’s actually a cookie.

  Perhaps I am overthinking this.

  “We were arguing because way back in the day, I gave Knight a loan.” She gestured to her house. “I mean, I’m not rich. I need a new roof and goodness knows what else, but I still gave him what I could and never asked for a dime in return. Then Mama gives him a huge wad of cash, and he won’t pay me back anything that I did for him. Yes, I was mad.”

  The coffee finished dripping, and Lynn poured three cups. She glided over and settled one in front of Malene and one in front of me.

  “I would like cream,” Malene said.

  “We’re all out.”

  “How about sugar?”

  “How about you broke into my house.”

  Malene stopped talking and started sipping.

  Lynn continued. “But I wasn’t mad enough to kill him, if that’s what happened. No one but you saw the knife, Clem. It must’ve either been the angle that we were standing at, or”—she eyed me skeptically—“the knife never existed in the first place.”

  “I know what I saw,” I said through clenched teeth. “There was a knife in Knight’s stomach.”

  “Everything happened so fast,” Lynn remarked, uninterested. “I’m still not convinced that Knight didn’t stage it all.”

  “It didn’t look staged.”

  She hiked a shoulder. “I’ve had some time to think about it. Look, if Tuney Sluggs doesn’t believe that Knight was hurt, then why should I?”

  “Sluggs doesn’t believe anyone can be murdered in this town,” I said. “It’s a fault of his.”

  “Still, I don’t know. Look, I was angry with my brother, so mad at him about the money, but I didn’t do anything to hurt him. I certainly didn’t kill him and get rid of the body a few seconds later.”

  Lynn narrowed her eyes at me. She was clearly annoyed by our presence (as well she should have been) but I didn’t believe that she was a killer. Basically, seeing the vat of dolls had convinced me of that. The woman obviously had strange storage ideas, but it wasn’t her brother in that barrel.

  That, plus the fact that she hadn’t called the police on us, convinced me that she wasn’t a bad person.

  For now, I was taking her off the list of suspects.

  We’d see if that winds up being a good idea or a bad one.

  We finished our coffee and thanked Lynn for her hospitality. She did not return our appreciation. Can’t say I blame her. After all, how often is it that you find a strange person in your house and then offer them coffee?

  When we were at the door about to walk out, Lynn held out her hand. “Can I get the key to my house back?”

  Ma
lene’s cheeks burned crimson. “Oh, of course, dear. Sorry about that.”

  Lynn took the key. “Thank you. And if I ever catch either one of you in my home again, I’ll have you arrested.”

  With that, she slammed the front door in our faces.

  “Considering, I would say that went pretty well,” Malene said.

  I grabbed her by the elbow and pivoted her toward the car. “Let’s just get out of here.”

  Malene drove us back toward my house, and on the way we passed Harlow’s renovation. The lights in the front room had been left on. It wasn’t like Liam and his men to be so careless.

  “Can you pull over? I want to go inside and flip off all the lights, save electricity.”

  Malene did as I asked. “Want me to come with you? Return to the scene of the crime? See if we can find out what really happened?”

  I shook my head. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

  Malene pursed her lips, giving her a prissy expression. “Well then, I’ll just be here, with the car running, waiting for you to come back out.”

  Wow, did someone get their feelings hurt easily or what? There was no point dwelling on it, so I slipped from the car and headed up to the house. I unlocked the front door, expecting to simply flip the lights off and return to the car, but what I saw instead made me stop.

  The kitchen could be seen from the front room. Every cabinet door was open wide, even the lumber that Liam had brought in sat disheveled, turned over.

  “What the…?”

  I stalked into the kitchen. It looked like someone had been in the house searching for something. Liam and his crew wouldn’t have done that; they wouldn’t have opened all the doors and just left them that way.

  Something was up. Deciding it wouldn’t be a bad idea to inspect the rest of the house, I slowly picked my way through it and discovered the same scenario in all the built-in cabinets in every room that had them.

  Maybe Harlow had come back and opened them, airing them out, perhaps. But why would she have done that? Remembering that Malene was waiting for me, I quickly shut everything, turned off the lights and headed back outside.

  When I was in the car, I told her what happened. “But I can’t for the life of me figure out what was going on. Why would someone have done that?”

  Malene shrugged. “Sounds to me like someone was looking for something.”

  “What would they have been searching for in an empty house?”

  She turned on her blinker to signal that we were pulling out of the parking spot, even though the street sat empty. “Beats me. Maybe they’re looking for the body.”

  I scoffed. “They’re not looking for Knight in a kitchen cabinet.”

  “We were looking for him in a barrel.”

  “That’s different.”

  We arrived at my house a few minutes later. Malene switched off the ignition and started to follow me inside.

  “Are you coming with me?” I asked.

  “Well yes, we have to figure out who is next on our list of suspects.”

  As much as I wanted to tell Malene that we should call it a night, she was always nice to me and generally gave me a new chocolate dessert to eat every few days.

  “Come on in,” I said.

  “I won’t be able to sleep,” she said, strolling into my living room. “I need to chat with someone.”

  Across the street I spied lights on in Willard Gandy’s house. “You could always ask Willard to join you for a nightcap.”

  Malene jabbed her finger in the air. “You keep talking like that, chicken, and I’ll be giving you a nightcap.”

  I cocked a brow. “Is that a threat?”

  “It’s a something.”

  I hid a laugh behind my hand and plopped down on the couch. Malene relaxed into the recliner. Lady was nowhere in sight, which meant she was probably asleep in my room, curled up in her doggy bed.

  Some watch dachshund I had—she didn’t even wake up when I got home.

  Malene rocked back and forth. “Tomorrow, I’ll tell the ladies that we need to start investigating Payne Owens. He’s the next likely subject, right?”

  “He is.”

  “I’ll get Urleen and Norma Ray on him. If he’s hiding something, you can be sure that we’ll find out about it.”

  We didn’t speak for a moment, and drained from thinking about Knight and all that mess, I changed topics. “Malene, how’d you learn about magic?”

  She pulled off her glasses. After searching through her purse, she pulled out a cleaning cloth and wiped the specks clean.

  “I was lucky—I had a parent who was magical. She taught me just about everything that I knew. My children didn’t have any power, but that’s sometimes how it goes—the magic skips a generation.”

  “I know you had a son, Matthew. You have more than one child?”

  She sniffed. “Yes, two of them—a daughter and a son. My daughter and I had a falling out. We stopped speaking ages ago.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She waved her hand. “She said I liked to meddle too much. When she had her own child, I wanted to be there to teach the magic, but my daughter was convinced the child wouldn’t be magical and she didn’t want to open, as she said, a can of magical worms. So I stayed out of their lives.”

  My heart ached for her. “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to keep you out of their lives. You’re a kind, generous person. Okay, maybe not to Willard Gandy, but you’re still kind—at least to me you are.”

  Malene wiped moisture from her eyes. I handed her a tissue and sat back down. “Well,” she continued, “you didn’t know me back then. I may have said some things that were wrong and hurt some feelings. I wasn’t always the best mother.”

  I tugged at my fingernail so hard a hangnail pulled away from the skin. “Well, I’m sure all was forgiven between the two of you.” The edge of my finger was tender, smarting under my touch. “Do you have any nail clippers?”

  Malene shook her head. “I’m afraid that I don’t.”

  “I need one.” I knew I had some in my purse. I searched it but couldn’t find any. Then I spotted my brown bag, the alternate bag that I didn’t use often. It was the same one that I had taken to Harlow’s the other night. Maybe I had dropped one in there.

  As soon as I opened the bag, my heart seized. “Oh my word.”

  “What is it?” Malene asked.

  I dipped my hand in and brought out Knight’s journal. “I totally forgot that I had this in here. It’s Knight’s journal, from the day he died. Maybe there’s a clue inside to tell us what may have happened—who really wanted him dead.”

  Malene crossed to me. “Well, what’re you waiting for? Open it up.”

  I unwound the leather cord from around the book and peeled back the cover. Inside, the pages had been hollowed out, and stuffed into the rectangular space was a wad of cash. I pulled it out. Malene’s eyes grew wide.

  “Well, well, well,” she said. “Think somebody’s going to want that?”

  I nodded. “I’m guessing they would. If they knew it was here. What should I do with it?”

  She tapped a finger to her lips. “Put it away and let me think.”

  I placed the money back in the journal and slid the book onto the bookcase, hiding it among my collection of paperbacks.

  “I guess that’ll do for now. Do you think someone knew about that cash?”

  Malene nodded. “My guess is that cash is what got Knight killed.”

  I swallowed a knot in the back of my throat. “And now I’m the one with it.”

  She nodded. “You sure are. Better be careful or else you’ll be next.”

  Chapter 16

  I made sure every bolt was locked before I went to bed that night. I tossed and turned, unable to get a restful sleep, and when I did sleep, Knight Owens appeared in my dream, asking why I had his money and why I’d hurt him.

  It was horrible, y’all. By the time four o’clock hit, I knew I’d never get any rest,
so I got up and started my day by brewing a full pot of coffee and eating a slice of the chocolate pie that Malene had brought over.

  Yes, I could eat chocolate at four a.m. I don’t think there’s anything strange about that.

  All my stirrings woke up Lady, who padded into the kitchen, yawning and blinking.

  “Clem, you’re up too early. How’s a dog supposed to get any sleep with you banging around in here?”

  I shrugged. “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to wake you, but I couldn’t lie in bed any longer.”

  She waddled over to her water bowl and took a long drink. Lady licked her lips before slumping down on her belly. “What’s bothering you?”

  “Oh, other than the fact that I’ve got close to twenty grand hiding in my living room, I don’t know what.”

  “Twenty grand!”

  “Yep.”

  “Somebody’s gonna want that.” She studied the worry on my face. “You think someone might try to hurt you for it?”

  “I think not only that, but that someone killed Knight for the money. Only now they don’t have it.” A thought hit me, sparking bright in my head. “That’s why the lights were on at Harlow’s last night. I bet that’s what it was—someone was looking for the journal. I bet they went to Knight’s house searching, too. I wonder if whoever it was didn’t find it at Knight’s and decided to go to Harlow’s. Does that mean they’ll return to Knight’s since they didn’t find it?”

  “You are giving me such a headache with all this talking things through. Maybe you should go through them one at a time.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly. “I found money that is clearly Knight’s. Someone probably knew about it and wanted to take it. They killed him, but I wound up with the money. Now that person will be searching for it. They would’ve hit Knight’s house first. When it wasn’t there, they would’ve returned to the last scene of the crime—Harlow’s. That’s why it had been picked over last night. I’m sure of it.”

  I was pacing now, the caffeine and chocolate doing their work on my body. Lady’s gaze ping-ponged as I strutted back and forth.

  “That means,” I continued, “that probably whoever is searching will return to Knight’s house to check one more time, thinking that they’ve missed something, which of course they have. It stands to reason then that I should be ready for them. I should be ready to capture whoever it is. Because that’s our killer.”