The Witching Hour

by Anina Collins

  I wondered what that meant. “Why would they think they didn’t kill her the first time?”

  Donny turned to face me and began to flail his hands, as if he couldn’t believe I didn’t know the answer. “Because death by asphyxiation takes a few minutes. Maybe they got scared. Maybe they got angry. I have no idea. All I can tell you is that the dagger sticking out of her chest didn’t kill her.”

  Still unsure of why anyone would do such a thing, I looked over at Alex as if to say, “Who knew?” and he smiled. “Well, thanks, Donny. Let me know when you find anything else, okay?”

  “Will do. Good luck.”

  The coroner left us sitting in the office, and I wondered aloud, “Who wanted to make it seem like Amy’s murder had to do with her religious beliefs when it didn’t?”

  Alex raised his hand to stop me before I continued with my train of thought. “We don’t know she wasn’t smothered for that same reason, so we can’t say this doesn’t have anything to do with her being a pagan.”

  “But for someone to specifically use a weapon that looks like something a pagan or witch might use when they didn’t have to since they had already smothered her sounds suspicious, don’t you think?”

  “Everything is suspicious in a murder case. You know how I work,” he said with a sly smile.

  “I’m just saying it feels like someone wanted the police to believe she was killed with something related to paganism.”

  He didn’t respond but simply hummed and pursed his lips, as if he was thinking about what I’d said. Alex may not have been the type to come up with ideas immediately at the beginning of a case, but he tolerated my tendency to do so.

  Just then, Stephen showed up in the doorway. “I saw Donny on his way out. I guess the idea that we at least knew what killed her just flew out the window.”

  “Well, we know now, but we’ll just have to keep in mind that whoever our murderer is they wanted to throw us off their trail. Why they chose that weapon is what we need to find out.”

  “Seems like a lame attempt, though,” I said and was happy to see Stephen nod in response.

  Alex stood to leave, so I moved to join him, but he waved me off. “I’ll be right back, Poppy.”

  He walked out to speak to Stephen alone, leaving me wondering why he didn’t ask me to join them. Then again, the reality was that even though he and I worked on cases together, I wasn’t officially part of the police force. I’d just grown used to being included on every part of our cases.

  It seemed that I better get used to a different reality on this one.

  When he returned a few minutes later, Stephen was nowhere to be found. I waited for Alex to say something about what they’d discussed, and when he didn’t, I asked.

  “Was it something I said?” I joked half-heartedly.

  Alex’s expression grew serious, and the corners of his mouth turned down ever-so-slightly. “Stephen is the lead on this case, so I offered our help in investigating Amy’s private life. He said he preferred to do that, so you and I are off to find out what the local pagan community may know about who would want our victim dead. Then we’ll look into her job while he focuses on her family and friends.”

  I couldn’t help but think that Stephen wasn’t the cop who should be the lead on this case. Alex was a much better officer and a better detective, but I didn’t want to rock the boat and cause problems by commenting on it since he’d made it clear the whole Stephen thing was a non-issue to him.

  “Sounds good. Do we have any details on those stones and candles found around her?”

  “Yeah. Craig found out that the stones are hematite and one found nearby is malachite. That one is green. The candles appear to be standard unscented white pillar candles. He’s working on where they can be purchased locally, but I doubt that detail is going to be integral in finding our killer. Any chance the research you did on paganism can help us figure out where to find people in that community to talk to?”

  I thought back to my talks with Amy and knew just where to start. “We have one or two places in town I can think of that might help us with that. I’m thinking the Third Eye Mind and Body Center should be our first stop, don’t you think?”

  Eager to get started, I stood to leave but saw confusion in Alex’s eyes. “What’s wrong? Did you have some other place in mind?”

  “I’m just wondering exactly what the Third Eye Mind and Body Center is and where they’ve been hiding it in this town,” he said with a smile, clearly amused by the idea of Sunset Ridge having such a place.

  Now it was my turn to tease him.

  “I’m surprised you don’t know about the place, Officer Montero. It’s located out near your house, and I imagine you’ve driven by the place nearly every day since you moved here.”

  His eyebrows shot up into his forehead to show his shock at missing such a detail of the local area. “Really? How is it I have never noticed it? It must be back off the road a bit.”

  “Nice excuse for not being observant,” I joked as I headed toward the door to walk out to the car. “It’s not far enough off the road to not be seen. I just think you’re amazed our town has a place dedicated to paganism.”

  I looked back at him and saw him nod. “Of course I’m surprised. Maybe I was wrong about the whole pagan angle being a problem in this case. I mean, if the people in town don’t mind about this Third Eye place being around, maybe they wouldn’t care what religion Amy practiced.”

  “Oh no, you weren’t wrong on that. They’d care. As to why the town doesn’t seem to have an issue with the Third Eye place, as you call it, being around, it’s mainly because it’s not smack dab on Main Street. It’s an out of sight, out of mind kind of thing.”

  His smile spread into a genuine grin at knowing he’d been right in the first place. “Ah. There’s that small town mentality I’ll never understand. Well, let’s get going to the Third Eye Mind and Body Center and see if anyone there can tell us anything that might explain why someone would want Amy Perkins dead.”

  Chapter Four

  Alex slowly pulled into the parking lot in front of the Third Eye Mind and Body Center and shut the car off. Staring out the front window, he said, “I thought this place was a storage center every time I drove by it.”

  “That’s because you never thought in a million years that a town like Sunset Ridge would have a place like this,” I said with a hint of satisfaction in my voice at how he’d missed the center, even though he had to drive past it each day on his way into town.

  Smiling, he turned to look at me. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  I didn’t even try to stifle my smile in return. “I am. It’s not every day that I notice something and you don’t. Let me have my moment of glory.”

  He looked back at the building, which did look very much like one of those self-storage facilities, except for the glass front door and sign on it that said Third Eye Mind and Body Center. “I imagine there was a huge issue when this place let the town council know it wanted to open up shop. How bad did it get? Was there yelling and screaming at the monthly meeting? I can only imagine.”

  I thought back to when the center applied for its business permit and didn’t remember much of a hubbub about it. Then one memory did remind me that it hadn’t been entirely smooth sailing.

  “The town council didn’t have a huge problem with it, but I do recall Mrs. Girard having something to say. Mayor Sanders’ wife Christine stood up in defense of the place and shut down the former mayor’s wife pretty quickly too.”

  A look of surprise came over Alex’s face. “Really? I’ve met Christine Sanders a few times and thought she was very nice, but I had no idea she was so open-minded. I like her more already.”

  Unlike the former mayor’s wife, Christine Sanders kept to herself, for the most part, and didn’t treat her position as anything more than decorative usually. Educated and well-mannered, she was the complete opposite of Mayor Girard’s wife, and I’d always sensed that she worked
hard to make sure of that.

  “Well, this was before she became First Lady, but once she gave her stamp of approval, nothing Mrs. Girard could say would sway the council and the center got its permit. They’ve been out here ever since. I want to say they’ve been open for at least four years.”

  That last bit of information wasn’t particularly helpful to our case, but it allowed me the opportunity to tweak Alex’s ego about not noticing a place that had been around for as long as he’d lived in town. My subtle teasing didn’t go unnoticed, if the smirk he gave me right before he got out of the car was any indication.

  We walked to the front door and saw a sign that said the center didn’t open until ten. Looking down at his watch, Alex said, “It’s a quarter to ten now. Let’s take a walk around the building. Maybe we’ll find something that might help us with the case.”

  “Hoping to find a dagger that matches the one we found buried in poor Amy’s chest?” I joked somewhat macabrely.

  He looked at me and shook his head as he headed off toward the left side of the building. “You’re dark sometimes, Poppy. Very dark.”

  I followed him around the corner and immediately saw an herb garden toward the back of the building. Thrilled to check out another garden similar to my own at home, I passed him and hurried to where the area was marked off with a tiny wire fence. Cute signs about a foot high with drawings of each herb and their names marked where each herb was planted.

  “Look how cute those are!” I said as I pointed at the one for basil. “I would love to have those in my garden. I’m going to have to ask the person we talk to where they got them. They are adorable!”

  I crouched down and inhaled deeply, smelling the sweet scent of basil and the rosemary planted next to it. Alex stood behind me and chuckled at how much enjoyment this herb garden was giving me.

  “You know, I hadn’t pegged you for the gardening type, but your green thumb has impressed me this summer. You’re full of surprises, Poppy McGuire.”

  Turning my head, I looked back and saw him smiling down at me. If I was so full of surprises, then why had we stalled out in our relationship? I never wanted surprises out of Alex, so his calm and steady way made me as happy as I could ever ask for, but maybe he wanted surprises. Maybe I wasn’t surprising enough. Being able to grow some plants in a garden in my backyard didn’t exactly make me exciting.

  Or maybe the surprises he’d seen so far were too much for him? He was a pretty serious kind of guy. Was it because I was surprising and not reliable that he didn’t know if he could count on me for the long haul? The thought sounded ridiculous, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that we’d been together for a while and we seemed to have stagnated.

  A noise inside the building interrupted my growing paranoia about my relationship with Alex, and he tapped me on the shoulder. “Let’s go see what we can find out about Amy.”

  We walked back to the front door and knocked on it. A woman with bright red hair that fell far past her shoulders and very pale skin appeared before us. She wore a long white flowing dress similar to the kind Amy had been wearing when she was murdered, a number of colorful, cheap-looking bracelets on each wrist, and numerous rings on nearly every one of her ten fingers.

  “The center doesn’t open until ten,” she said loudly through the glass.

  Alex pressed his badge to the window and said, “We need to speak to you now, ma’am.”

  For a moment, the woman looked unhappy and grimaced, but then she began to unlock the door. Alex turned to me and quietly said, “I think this is exactly what Mother Nature must look like.”

  As the door opened, I whispered, “Well, I think you’ve angered Mother Nature, so I expect something awful to happen any minute. Fire and brimstone awful. Watch out for lightning bolts.”

  The woman held the door for us to walk in, throwing us nasty looks as we passed by, and then she locked it again as I scanned the room we walked into. The store at the Third Eye Mind and Body Center had a variety of items, some I recognized like candles and gemstones, but others I’d never seen before like the shelf of what looked like ornate pendants.

  For some reason, I’d expected to see a Spartan, minimalistic décor inside the center, probably because everything I knew of other religions seemed to reveal that clutter of any sort muddled the person. My friend in college practiced non-traditional religions, and I remembered her saying all the time that the mess of my dorm room inhibited my happiness and productivity because it stifled my chi. I had no idea if she was right or not, but I did get more work done after each time I gave the room a good cleaning. But the room I stood in at the moment felt very cluttered, and I wasn’t sure about my chi, but I didn’t feel wonderful being there.

  The woman who’d answered the door walked behind the counter on the far side of the room and lit a stick of incense I recognized as patchouli scented. It stunk up the entire room almost instantly, making me dislike this place even more than when it just felt like a messy collection of tchotchke.

  “So what can I do for the Sunset Ridge police today?” she asked with a forced smile, and I immediately noticed her teeth looked very dingy and desperately in need of some whitening strips.

  Alex took out his notebook and pen from his shirt pocket and began his interview with her by politely saying, “My name is Alex Montero and this is Poppy McGuire. What is your name, ma’am?”

  With a flourish of her hand near her face, she answered his question quite dramatically. “Tamara Ridgeway.”

  The way she said her name as Ta-MAH-ra and not TA-ma-ra like I’d always heard the name pronounced seemed entirely affected. I also felt quite sure this woman would freak out if anyone dared to call her Tammy.

  “Thank you, Miss Ridgeway. What can you tell me, if anything, about how you know Amy Perkins?”

  Immediately, she became on edge and began waving her hands around in excitement, her brown eyes flashing her unhappiness at his question. “Why? Did she call the police on me because of what I said at the meeting? For Goddess’s sake! It’s gotten to the point that two people can’t even have a simple religious disagreement anymore. I swear this place is becoming like Communist Russia!”

  Alex let her finish her ranting and calmly replied, “No, ma’am. She didn’t call the police on you. We’re simply investigating a case involving her and need to know the nature of your relationship with her.”

  Tamara set her hands on her hips and frowned. “She’s a witch and refuses to admit it. That’s our relationship. It’s that simple.”

  He wrote down her answer and then looked up at her. “Are you a witch, Miss Ridgeway? Do you have a problem with her being a witch?”

  “No! I’m very proud to be a witch, but Amy Perkins refuses to admit she is too, as if there’s some reason to be ashamed of being one. She insists on calling herself a Druid. Ridiculous! She’s a witch, and that’s it!”

  Every word became shriller than the last until Tamara Ridgeway was practically screeching at us. I didn’t know if she’d murdered Amy, but she certainly didn’t like her much.

  “Uh-huh,” he said as he jotted down the words VERY EMOTIONAL ABOUT THE WITCH THING in his case notes.

  As Alex readied his next question, I took the opportunity to ask one of my own. “What does it mean to be a witch, Miss Ridgeway? Is there something you do to qualify as one? For example, are you in a coven that Amy Perkins didn’t join that makes you a witch and might make her think she wasn’t?”

  Clearly exasperated by this question, Tamara huffed her disgust at my seemingly ridiculous notion of witches. Pointing at me, she snapped, “This! This is the reason people still think we should be burned at the stake. The ignorance of your partner is astounding!”

  Alex looked up from his notes and smiled. “Calm down, Miss Ridgeway. My partner was asking a perfectly innocent, and if I do say so myself, useful question that I would be interested in knowing the answer to. Perhaps if more people knew about witches and what they do, they wouldn’t want to burn a
nyone.”

  For a moment, Tamara said nothing, but then she spun on her heels and walked into the back room for a moment before returning with a pamphlet she thrust into my face. “This will tell you everything you need to know. I hope you read it and educate yourself.”

  I took her pamphlet on witches and wondered why this woman had to be so abrasive. If she wanted to get people to be more understanding about her beliefs, she may have wanted to at least try to be pleasant. I would have even taken enthusiastic evangelism rather than her continued nastiness.

  “So other than your disagreement about what Amy is, how would you categorize your relationship?”

  Tamara twisted her face into a scowl. “We don’t have a relationship, Officer Montero. What are you insinuating?”

  Alex looked over at me, and we exchanged looks that told me he was as baffled about Tamara’s rudeness as I was.

  “Does Miss Perkins frequent the Third Eye Center often?”

  “Not anymore. She used to, but not recently.”

  “How not recently?”

  “She used to come in every Tuesday for the witches’ circle meeting we have in the back room every Tuesday night at eight o’clock, but she hasn’t been in for over a month.”

  “I’m going to need the names of every person who has attended those meetings in the past six months, Miss Ridgeway.”

  She opened her mouth to argue with him about his demand, but he continued asking his questions. “Do you know why she stopped attending the weekly meeting?”

  “Because I challenged her to admit what she was or not join us in hypocrisy. She hasn’t been back since.”

  “And when was that?”

  Tamara spun around on her heels again to look at the calendar and flipped two pages down to July. “July 18th was the last meeting she attended.”

  “And was that the last time you saw her?”

  For once, her answer didn’t come out of her mouth like she was spitting out rancid food. “Yes. I haven’t seen her since.”