I turned to her and looked her up and down dubiously. “She’s going to hate that sweater.”
“She would make fun of a dead person because of what they were wearing? I doubt that.” Sophie obviously thought I was exaggerating. Aunt Tillie needed no exaggeration, though.
“Ask Shane.”
Sophie turned to Shane expectantly. He looked her up and down a second. “She’ll make fun of your outfit,” he said finally. “I don’t think she means for it to be hurtful. It is, though. Just prepare yourself.”
Edith seemed to have suddenly noticed Sophie, who was helplessly trying to smooth a sweater she couldn’t physically touch. “Who is this?”
“This is Sophie. She was found in the Johnson corn maze this morning. I mean her body was found.”
Edith didn’t seem surprised at the news. “I heard Chief Terry telling your aunts about that this morning when he stopped by for breakfast. He obviously didn’t know you found a ghost.”
“Of course not. I can’t tell him that. He’ll think I’m crazy.”
“I think he already knows, he just doesn’t know how to bring it up,” Edith said knowingly.
“Knows that I see ghosts? Why do you think that?”
Edith shrugged. “It’s just the way he was acting. He knows you’re all abnormal. He just seems to find it attractive instead of repulsive.”
“We’re not abnormal – that makes it sound like we belong in that asylum on American Horror Story,” I countered.
“Honey, there’s no shame in not being normal,” Edith said, surprising me with her tone. “The shame is fighting what you are. You know what you are and what you do. Why do you care what other people think about you?”
“She’s right,” Shane said, smiling at Edith for the first time since he’d met her. “I’m starting to like you. You’re old school.”
Edith pursed her lips. I could tell she was trying to decide if she had been insulted or not.
“That was a compliment,” I supplied.
Edith smiled at Shane. It was still a little forced, but she was definitely warming up to him, too.
I couldn’t help but smile at Edith in turn. Getting out of the office was having a positive effect on her. If I knew that she was capable of softening, I would have forced her out of the office years ago.
Edith seemed uncomfortable by the sudden warmth being directed towards her. “Have they remembered how they died?” She swiftly changed the subject, gesturing towards Shane and Sophie.
“No,” I said, my mind returning to the problem at hand. “You still don’t have any ideas on how to jog their memories do you? We’re kind of stuck until they start remembering stuff.”
“If I knew that, I’d be using it on myself,” Edith chided me.
“We’ll remember when we remember,” Sophie said haphazardly. “There’s no hurry. It’s not like we can die again.”
“No hurry? What if they kill someone else?” I met her gaze solidly.
“They don’t want to kill anyone else,” Sophie said simply. “They only wanted two. One boy and one girl.”
“How do you know that?”
Sophie paused. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “It just . . . it just came to me.”
“Do you remember anything else?”
“It’s like a dream at the edge of my memory more than anything else,” she admitted. “I can’t see faces, but I’m starting to remember feelings. There were two people there. A man and a woman.”
“Were they old? Young?”
“I can’t be sure,” Sophie bit her lower lip. “I don’t think they’re old. Younger than forty for sure. I just don’t have a clear picture.”
“You will,” I encouraged her.
“I hope so,” she said. “It had better be soon, though. Whatever they have planned, it’s going to happen in the next few days.”
“You’re sure?”
“I remember the man saying that it has to happen the night of the next full moon,” Sophie said. “That’s like two days away, isn’t it?”
The full moon. I had forgotten. If it was ritualistic, then of course they would try and tie it to the full moon. Even novices knew that. Thistle had said something about the full moon when she’d been in her trance, too. We should have paid more attention to that little detail.
“So, if we don’t catch them then what happens?” Shane asked.
“I think, if we don’t catch them soon, then we’ll never catch them,” I admitted truthfully. This was a feeling I couldn’t shake. We were running out of time.
“Well, that’s just not acceptable, “ Sophie huffed. “I refuse to die for nothing. Someone has to pay for killing me – especially before I got to wear my new sweater.”
Seventeen
I remained at the office – Googling similar cases throughout the United States -- until lunch and then excused myself to go down to Hypnotic to eat with Thistle and Clove. While I had found numerous cases that involved killing teenagers and cutting out their hearts – sick, I know – I could only find a handful that involved killing both a boy and a girl. Either the cases involved a lot more victims, or the killer picked one gender and stuck with it.
I expected Shane to put up a fight to come with me. He hardly noticed, though. He was deep in conversation with Sophia and Edith, with the latter imparting her ghostly wisdom on her younger students.
When I got to Hypnotic, Thistle looked around wildly for a second. “You didn’t bring them here, did you?”
“I left them at the newspaper office,” I answered. “They’re bonding with Edith. She’s giving some sort of ghost lesson.”
“That sounds like a fun afternoon,” Clove said sarcastically.
“I don’t know, Edith seems to have loosened up since I introduced her to the world she was missing.”
“Yeah, we heard.”
“You heard what?”
“Your mom called and asked us if we knew anything about Edith paying a visit to Aunt Tillie.” Clove delivered the statement in her typical absent-minded nature, but that didn’t stop the pang of fear from rushing through me. Uh-oh.
“What did you tell her?”
Thistle must have caught on to my panic, because I saw a sly grin track across her face. “Why? Are you worried she knows that you encouraged Edith to go up there and haunt her?”
“No.” Yes, absolutely. “Besides, you were the one that told Edith to go up there. It wasn’t me.”
“She’s going to come after you. You know that don’t you?” Clove cautioned. She ignored the part about Thistle actually being the guilty party in this particular situation.
“I’m not scared of her.” What? I’m not. I’m terrified of her.
Clove smiled at me knowingly. “This will at least be entertaining for us. You’re not going to have a good night. We will, though.”
Crap, crap, crap.
I ate lunch with Clove and Thistle – but my heart wasn’t really in it. I was worried this would be my last meal – and it wasn’t very good.
After lunch, I made my way over to the police department. Shane’s autopsy results were supposed to be in and I wanted to see if they revealed anything that we didn’t already know. I also needed a distraction. Obsessing about whatever punishment Aunt Tillie was going to mete out to me wasn’t going to lead to a very productive afternoon.
Chief Terry looked up when he saw me come in. He didn’t look surprised to see me. “I figured you would show up.”
“How was your breakfast?”
“How did you know I went up for breakfast?”
“I saw your car there when I left for work.”
“I just figured a solid breakfast couldn’t hurt,” Chief Terry explained.
“You don’t have to make excuses,” I countered. “I’m the one that sent you up there, remember?”
I could see Chief Terry redden slightly. I figured the ego boost he received while he had been up there had done him a world of good. “I’m sure they were happy to
see you,” I added.
“They seemed to be.” He seemed a little too pleased with himself. “Well, all except your Aunt Tillie,” he amended.
“I wouldn’t take it personally,” I said. “She’s never happy to see me either.”
“Yeah, but she was persnickety – even for her.”
“What do you mean?”
“She kept running around and yelling that she was being haunted by an angry stick figure from hell.”
Edith.
“Did she seem angry about it?” I tried to act nonchalant, but I don’t think it was working.
Chief Terry looked puzzled. “No. More perplexed than anything else. Your mom kept trying to force her to sit down and have a cup of tea. I think they put a shot of bourbon in it to convince her finally. She calmed down some after that.”
My guess would be three shots.
“You didn’t hear her mention my name, did you?”
“Why would she mention your name?”
“No reason.”
“I only heard her mention you once,” Chief Terry said. I think he thought he was placating me, but my heart clenched up in fear when he said the words.
“What did she say? What did she say exactly?”
“Just that she was looking forward to seeing you.” I doubt that. “And that she couldn’t wait until the next family dinner.” That was probably the truth.
I could feel the blood drain from my face. God, what hell had she dreamt up for me this time?
“Your mom told her you would be there for dinner tonight, not to worry.”
“Family dinner night,” I gritted out through clenched teeth.
“There’s something I’m missing here,” Chief Terry said.
“It’s nothing important,” I swallowed hard. “Just the normal family drama.” With a hint of vindictive old lady mixed in for good measure.
“Sounds fun.” Chief Terry was angling for an invite. I guess he hadn’t gotten enough Winchester attention to satiate him today. He might make a good buffer.
“Why don’t you come with me?”
“Oh, I don’t know, it’s a family thing.”
It wouldn’t take much cajoling to convince him. “All the inn guests will be there, too. I’m sure, given what’s going on, everyone would be thrilled to have someone from law enforcement in attendance,” I lied. “It will be comforting.” She couldn’t openly curse me in front of him. Even she wouldn’t go that far. Would she?
“Well, if you’re sure. . . “
“I’m sure.”
“Well, okay then.” He looked genuinely happy. “I guess you’re here to find out what the autopsy results said?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, they were interesting and yet not surprising.”
“What do you mean?”
“We were right about the hearts being removed.”
“We already knew that.”
“It looks like someone tried to sew the bodies back up afterwards, though.”
“What? It didn’t work?”
“It’s not as easy as it sounds, especially when you’re using sewing thread.” Chief Terry grimaced, despite himself.
“Sewing thread? Gross.”
“Yeah.”
“Why would someone use sewing thread?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s all they had access to.” Chief Terry looked as confused by the new tidbit of information as I felt.
“Why sew them up to begin with?”
“That’s an even better question. All I can think is that maybe they thought it would make the bodies easier to transport if they didn’t have huge gaping wounds. Maybe it was simply an attempt to cut down on the amount of blood they left behind when they were dragging the body through the maze.”
Hmm. “Anything else?”
“As best as we can put it together, Shane Haskell was kept alive for about seven hours before he was killed.”
“Did he have defensive wounds? Did he fight them?”
“There was some wear on the body, but the pathologist believes that was from dragging him through the corn maze after he was dead.”
“So he was killed some place else?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Well, that makes sense. There wasn’t a lot of blood at the scene. Either scene, for that matter.”
“No.”
“Do you think they did it in their vehicle?”
“Probably not. That would be a big risk if they were pulled over,” Chief Terry said.
True.
“Plus, that’s not a lot of room to work with when you’re trying to cut someone’s heart out,” he expounded. “I have never done it personally, but I would imagine that you need a little more room to maneuver when you’re cutting through that much bone.”
“That means we’re looking for a secondary location entirely.”
“And if we don’t know what we’re looking for, it makes it that much harder to find,” Chief Terry admitted.
“It’s probably closer to here than Traverse City, though.” I don’t know why I believed that, I had no actual proof, but the minute I said it something in my mind clicked. It felt like the truth.
“That would be my guess, too,” Chief Terry agreed.
“Anything else?”
“We’re still waiting for the toxicology results,” he said. “Those won’t be in for at least another day, maybe two. They’re putting a rush on them, but they still take time. We’ll probably know more after that.”
I got up from the chair. “Well, keep me in the loop.”
“I will.”
As I exited his office, I turned back. “Don’t forget dinner. It starts at 7 p.m.”
“I’ll be there.”
I went back to Hypnotic after I was done at Chief Terry’s office. Clove was busy doing a Tarot reading for a young couple when I entered, so I sat down on the couch and kept what I’d just learned to myself. I didn’t want to freak anyone out.
Thistle was behind the counter. She met my gaze but didn’t say anything.
Clove finished up the reading about fifteen minutes later, but the tourists didn’t immediately leave. Instead they started perusing the store. They looked like they were going to be awhile. Clove joined me on the couch.
“I invited Chief Terry to dinner,” I said finally.
“Why?”
“No reason. I just thought he could use a good meal.”
“I know why,” Thistle practically sang from behind the counter.
I glared in her general direction.
“Why?” Clove asked.
“Because she thinks Aunt Tillie is less likely to exact revenge with a member of law enforcement in attendance.”
“That’s not why,” I protested. “I like Chief Terry. I thought he deserved a home cooked meal.”
“You’re the worst liar ever,” Clove laughed.
The couple was now up at the register and checking out with a variety of trinkets and power crystals Thistle conversationally chatted with them. “Are you guys staying locally?”
“Yes, we just checked into The Overlook this afternoon,” the woman said enthusiastically.
“Oh, really, that’s my mom’s place . . .well, all of our moms own it together,” Thistle gestured to Clove and me.
“Oh, it’s so cool,” the woman enthused. “We had lunch there today, too, and it was amazing. We’re looking forward to dinner there tonight.”
“We’ll all be there, too,” Thistle said warmly. “It should be an entertaining evening.” Her gaze met mine. I wanted to flip her off, but I knew better than doing it in front of customers.
“Do you eat dinner there every night?” The woman seemed genuinely curious.
“Not every night,” Thistle said. “We go up there a couple of times a week, though. It’s a way for us to all be together as a family.”
“That’s sounds really nice,” the woman said sincerely.
“Oh, it is,” Clove stifled a laugh. “It’s
going to be really fun tonight. A lot of precious family time.” I just hoped my mom had hidden the meat cleaver.
“Why?” The woman asked.
Clove looked like she wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to say. A family joke is only funny to the actual family at the center of it. Any way she tried to explain it, things were going to look odd to strangers.
“We just think people are going to be excited because all of the town activity,” Thistle said smoothly.
“Oh, you mean the murders?” The woman said sagely.
“Yes, the murders.”
“Yeah, we heard about them on the news. That’s terrible. Do you think the corn mazes will be open this week? That’s one of the reasons we came.”
That was a little morbid. “I don’t know,” I said carefully. “Maybe.”
After the couple left, I filled Clove and Thistle in on the autopsy results. I was still bothered by the couple’s curiosity about the corn mazes. It didn’t sit right with me. Were people coming to town just because of the murders? Had the television reporter been right?
Eighteen
I rode back to the inn with Thistle and Clove – and my panic continued to grow exponentially during the drive. We stopped at the guesthouse long enough to drop off our purses and then headed for The Overlook. I was understandably nervous.
“Don’t let her see you’re scared,” Thistle warned me. “She can smell fear. She’s like a dog that way.”
“Maybe Bay should act like a dog,” Clove suggested.
“What do you mean?”
“You know, roll over on the floor and expose your belly. Show her you’re subservient.” Clove’s dimple came out to play.
I slapped Clove’s hand away when she reached out and tried to pet me. “You’re so not funny.”
“I think we’re funny,” Clove giggled.
“I think we’re downright hilarious,” Thistle agreed.
Clove opened the door into the back living quarters and stepped into the room first. I let Thistle follow her – but I remained on the front stoop, frozen in fear.
Clove tilted her head back out the door and regarded me. “Why don’t you just come in and get it over with. Your fear is bound to be worse than any punishment she’ll actually think up.”
“That’s not true,” I argued. “Remember when we were kids and we all cut each other’s hair and she cursed us for six months so our hair wouldn’t grow and we were stuck looking like that for what seemed like forever?”
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