Broom and Gloom

by Sara Bourgeois

  “Tell me about it,” Annika said. “You’re better off without it.”

  “So what about Finn’s? Did he do the same thing?”

  “Finn barely used his Bookface,” Annika said. “He hadn’t posted anything for weeks. Possibly because they’d been lost in the woods, but he didn’t post much before that either. Most of what was on his wall was stuff Joanna posted. It was all a bunch of love will conquer all even through the hard times stuff.”

  “Huh,” I said. “Sounds like she was trying too hard.”

  “Exactly. People who post too much of that crap online have horrible relationships. It’s like a scientific fact.”

  “But he didn’t use social media much,” I mused.

  “Well, that we know,” Annika said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He could have used it a great deal but had a secret account Joanna didn’t know about.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Yeah. I’m going to look for that while you make breakfast,” Annika said.

  I listened to Annika’s fingers flying over the keyboard while I cooked bacon, eggs, and hash browns. Eventually, Remy came down and joined her at the table. He just sat and watched her work.

  When the food was done, I put it on plates and headed to the table. I arrived about the same time that Annika’s furious typing stopped.

  "Did you find anything?" I asked as I put her plate down next to the laptop.

  "He did have a secret account, but it's not what I expected," Annika said.

  "What do you mean?"

  I gave Remy his plate and joined them at the table after getting us some coffee. Annika had gone back to typing, but it was far less furious. She looked up at me when she finally stopped like she was emerging from a bad dream.

  "It's not what I expected to find in a secret account," Annika said. "I thought it would be him having conversations with women other than his wife. Like he was using it to cheat. That's usually why men have these things."

  "Why did he have it then?" I asked.

  "Well, there are conversations with other women, but it looks like they are abuse survivors. One of them is a domestic violence counselor," Annika answered.

  "It's still possible that he was just setting it all up. To make her look like the bad one when it was him?" I felt gross even questioning it, but it was still possible.

  "But why have such a secret account?" Annika asked. "This wasn't easy for me to find. I had to hack into it, and it took me more than a little magic to even track it down."

  "Maybe he was going to kill her and claim self-defense," I said. "Perhaps he hoped the police would find it, or he was going to show it to them later."

  "My problem is that it is just so well-hidden," Annika said. "If it had been just a little bit less, then perhaps I'd have an easier time believing that."

  "So what do we do?" I asked. "I'm not comfortable going to these women and asking them if they thought he was sincere or even if he had any evidence of being abused. That just feels wrong."

  "What I did find out from Joanna's page is that Finn's funeral is today. We should go," Annika said. "I'm curious to see how she acts. Maybe that will tell us something."

  "That sounds like a good idea,” I said. "What time?"

  "It's at ten in the morning at the cemetery in New Salem," Annika said.

  "Well then, let's eat up and get ready to go," I said.

  "You sure you're up to this?" Remy asked. "We don't have to do any of it. We could just let it go."

  "I can't," I said. "If Finn was murdered because of violence in his own home, then it needs to come out. Too much of this is swept under the rug."

  "Wait," Remy said. "Do you think she'll even be at the funeral? What if she's in custody? They're probably not going to take her."

  "Let me call Gunner," Annika said. "I'm sure he can tell me that much even without the potion."

  She went into the other room, and I could hear her dial. There was some talking and her pacing around for a couple of minutes, and then Annika returned.

  "She's been released," Annika said. "They didn't have any evidence to hold her."

  "I don't suppose Gunner told you how Finn died?"

  "Nope, he didn't say. We can find out, though."

  We drove to the funeral in silence. Something hung in the air beyond just the dark, gray clouds. I studied them as Remy drove and wondered if they were pregnant with rain or snow. There had definitely been a harsh chill in the air when we left.

  It was far worse when we arrived too. The mourners had to steel themselves against an icy wind that howled through the cemetery.

  The funeral was outside with the casket at the head of two groups of chairs. An aisle that might as well have been the emotional equivalent of the Amazon River ran between the groups of chairs.

  Joanna sat practically alone on one side while the other was filled with what I assumed were Finn's friends and family. It spoke volumes to me that they wanted nothing to do with her. One person sat next to Joanna, but even they got up and left in the middle of the service.

  She never cried. Joanna just sat there and stared straight ahead. I really couldn't tell if she was bored or in shock.

  My chance to find out would come after the service. As soon as Finn's casket was lowered into the ground, she got up and walked off.

  The three of us watched her, and it was obvious she hadn't noticed us there. We'd stood off to one side by some trees, and she'd never so much as glanced in our direction.

  We followed Joanna as she walked clear to the other side of the cemetery. It was an old section filled with large family mausoleums and worn slate tombstones.

  "Is it over?" a man's voice asked.

  I heard him before I saw him, but what I did see when we caught up was Joanna take his hand. Then they disappeared into an old vault with a broken door.

  "I told you not to come," Joanna attempted to sound lovey-dovey, but there was a distinct edge to her voice.

  "I had to see you," the man said. "I couldn't wait another moment. You're mine now, and I couldn't wait another minute to be with you."

  "I don't understand why you couldn't just follow one simple instruction," Joanna said.

  "We'd better go in there," Remy whispered.

  I could feel that something wasn't right. The tone of her voice was dangerous. Before we could make it into the crypt, a gunshot thundered from inside the mausoleum. Some birds scattered nearby, but, while the shot must have been deafening inside of the stone building, I knew there was no way anyone heard it back at the funeral.

  "No," I said and charged inside.

  Remy and Annika stumbled through the door behind me, and we caught Joanna completely off guard. She looked shocked and waved the gun around in front of us, eventually settling on aiming it at Remy.

  I dropped to my knees next to the man she'd shot in the chest and did my best to heal him.

  "What are you doing?" Joanna hissed.

  "I'm trying to help him."

  She laughed and shot the man in the head. I scrambled back against the stone wall of the crypt.

  "Aim that thing back at me," Remy demanded.

  "I don't see what difference it makes," Joanna said with an unsettling laugh. "None of you are getting out of here alive."

  "You see," Annika said with confidence, "that's where you're wrong."

  Joanna swung the gun around to Annika, took aim, and fired. The bullet dropped to the floor impotently halfway between the two of them. Joanna fired again, and the same thing happened.

  "What the fu..." But before she could finish her question, Annika froze Joanna in place.

  "That's a good question." I looked to the entrance of the vault, and standing there was Gunner.

  "How did you do that?" All of the color drained from his face.

  "Gunner, what are you doing here?" Annika asked.

  "You said you were going to the funeral, and I thought I'd join you. I was going to text you and then meet you here,
but I got held up by a small traffic accident at the town square," he said. "But how are you doing that?"

  "Doing what?" Annika asked innocently.

  Gunner walked up and snatched the gun from Joanna's hand. "She can't move, right? I mean, it's obvious. But, how?"

  "We'll explain after," Remy said. "Just put her in cuffs if you have them and call the local police. Please don't say anything to them about what you saw Annika do."

  Gunner nodded his head, but his face was grim. He put his handcuffs on Joanna and called in to the county dispatch.

  Epilogue

  Not only had Joanna been abusive, but she’d sensed that Finn was reaching out for help. That’s why we suspected she’d killed him, and why she’d already begun a relationship with another man. She couldn’t stand the thought of not having someone there to boost her ego.

  In the end, her narcissistic rage had claimed two victims. More than that, if you thought about it. Finn’s entire family had lost a loved one.

  She hadn’t murdered him in the hospital, though. My magic didn’t save him because he’d lost the will to live. But, if nothing else, she was going to prison for the rest of her life. They had her dead to rights for the murder of the second man, Charles, even if the case for Finn’s murder was difficult.

  Knowing she was a murderer made some of the evidence easier to explain, though. Like the cuts on her hands. Those were from her palms slipping down the knife when she stabbed Finn and were not defensive wounds. That’s why they’d only been on one hand.

  At the very least, justice had been served. Finn didn’t have to die at the hands of his abuser and then have the world think he was the abusive one. We’d cleared his name, and I took comfort in that.

  Gunner followed us back to my house after that. Annika had been nervous. I was worried he would run and never look back, but that wasn’t in Gunner’s nature.

  He came into my house, sat down in one of my living room chairs, and calmly waited for an explanation. Meri sashayed out of the kitchen and sat down. I was sure that if he’d known what was going on, he’d have spoken and probably made Gunner jump right back out of that chair.

  “You saw exactly what you thought you saw,” I began. “We were going to tell you someday. We would have had to given your relationship with Annika, but we wanted to wait for the right time.”

  “What exactly did I see?” Gunner asked.

  “You haven’t figured it out yet?” Annika seemed a bit shocked.

  “I have, but I want to hear you say it,” he said casually, but I could tell he was working to maintain his composure.

  “It was magic,” Annika said, and I saw her hold her breath.

  “We’re witches,” I added. “This town is full of them. Well, maybe about half and half. The other regular people, like you, don’t know about us. There’s a layer of magic over the town that keeps regular folks from noticing things.”

  “Okay,” Gunner said.

  “You don’t seem shocked,” Annika said after letting out the breath she’d been holding.

  “I’ve seen some things,” Gunner said. “Some things I could never explain.”

  “The magic on the town didn’t work on you?” I asked. I flashed back to Thorn. It hadn’t worked well on him either, but it seemed so strange that would be the case with another sheriff.

  “Not here,” Gunner said. “The magic shield whatever works fine here. It was in the desert at night. We’d see things when we were out on missions that we couldn’t explain. The military just told us the bad guys were spraying us with opium to make us confused. I never bought it, but I kept my mouth shut. One guy didn’t and he got a medical discharge for mental health. I didn’t want that. I assumed my superiors had their reasons for lying to us, and I did my job.”

  “So, you’re not going to leave?” Annika held her breath again.

  “Not in a million years, sugar butt. I think it makes you even more beautiful and interesting.”

  “Yuck,” I said with a chuckle. “Hey, Remy, you want to get out of here? I think we should let these two have some time to talk.”

  “The diner for pancakes?” Remy asked.

  “We should pick a date,” Remy said after we’d placed our order. “For the wedding.”

  “All right,” I said. “What did you have in mind?”

  “December twenty-first,” he said.

  “That’s so soon and so close to Christmas.”

  “You’re my present,” Remy said with a smile.

  “That was cheesy,” I teased, but it made me smile too.

  “It’s also Winter Solstice, and I think that’s the perfect time for our wedding. I don’t want to wait anymore.”

  “You know what, I don’t want to wait anymore either. Yeah, let’s do it then,” I said. “December twenty-first it is.”

  “We’re going to get married,” Remy said with a wide smile.

  “Yeah, we’re getting married,” I answered. “You’re going to be stuck with me forever.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Thank you for reading! Grab the next installment of the Wicked Witches of Coventry here:

  Over the Broom

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  © Sara Bourgeois 2019

  This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons alive or dead is a coincidence.