A Cauldron of Witch Tricks

by Constance Barker

  Was Audra hiding fear behind her bluster? Nann took in the others. Anne Walker looked afraid. Gene and Helen Wozniak looked confused. Barb Buford looked drunk again.

  “She has a point, Nann. Can we get to it?” Keith, dressed in full uniform, prompted her.

  “If this is official, I would like our attorney present,” Gene said.

  “It’s not official,” Keith said.

  Not just yet, Nann thought.

  “Why not just take the witch down to the substation and beat the answer out of her with a rubber hose?” Baker said.

  “Okay, Nann has some important information about the murder, and I think we should listen,” Keith said. “If she’ll get on with it.”

  Nann was on. She cast a look at the stuffed bear over her shoulder. Showtime.

  “I know none of you like me. It’s because I’m a Druid. I admit it. I celebrate the Wheel of the Year, I commune with nature, I engage in ceremonies probably considered magical. There. It’s out in the open.

  “I’ve been keeping track of the local race for the county seat. Mr. Wozniak’s platform has an agenda, an anti-magic agenda. Blake Simmons was of the same political mind.”

  “So you killed him for it when he blackmailed you, witch” Audra snarled. “Who else could’ve gotten in here, murdered Blake, and fled unseen?”

  “Okay, there is magic involved here, but the murder wasn’t about magic. I believe whoever put Blake up to another attempt to get my house wanted to plant a red herring, frame a suspect,” Nann said.

  “You admit it,” Doug said. “This is personal.”

  “You’re in real estate, aren’t you Mr. Baker?”

  “Don’t go pinning that paranoid bully’s ideas on me,” Baker started. “He was already going off the rails.”

  “Speaking of real estate,” Nann talked over him. “You, Anne, Helen, Blake and Barb were all partners in a development firm, Lakeshore Properties.”

  “Oh, don’t start with that again,” Barb slurred. “We offered you a fair price for that Victorian pile.”

  “We’re not going there,” Nann said. “Just establishing the fact. The company has filed for bankruptcy, correct?”

  Nobody spoke, but she could see expressions turning downcast.

  “What does that have to do with murder, Nann?” Keith said.

  “Nothing. It has absolutely nothing to do with murder. Not real estate, not magic, but love.” She focused on Audra. “Devotion.”

  Audra went a little pale. Doug took her hand.

  Chapter 19

  “This is a waste of time,” Wozniak said. “Who killed Blake? If you know, just spill it.”

  “Let me back up a little,” Nann said. “Even though this anti-magic sentiment runs strong in Port Argent, Anne, Helen and Audra purchased magic items from a... vendor out of town.”

  “I thought you said magic has nothing to do with this,” Wozniak went on. “Magic won’t hold up in court, Missy.”

  “No, I suppose not. But I just thought it was weird. Three women, thoroughly against magic, buying charms and potions.” She looked at Audra again. “Why would a married woman buy a love potion? Love Potion Number 11, I believe.”

  Gene gave his wife the eye. She blushed. “It was all just silliness, Gene.”

  Anne Walker fingered a purple stone at her throat.

  “Why did you buy a potion from Brock Miller Junior, Audra? Did Blake have a wandering eye?”

  High points of color formed on Audra’s cheeks. “As far as I know, Blake was faithful to me during our marriage.”

  “Maybe you had the wandering eye, Audra.”

  “Don’t take that bait,” Doug blurted.

  “I really won’t be accused of such behavior in my own house. I’d like you to leave.”

  “You don’t want to know who killed Blake?”

  Audra, eyes spitting flames, folded her arms and didn’t speak.

  “But, really, Miss Szymanski, if you don’t have anything but insults, let’s end this right now,” Gene said.

  “Sorry, just setting some background. Speaking of which, you own several successful hotels, Mr. Wozniak.”

  He nodded. “Yes. What does that have to do with us being here?”

  “Have you ever offered, as a prize, or a gift, free nights’ stays in your hotels?”

  “Sure. Of course. Who doesn’t want to get away once in a while?”

  Nann went on. “Including a rather infamous one on Route 104?”

  It was his turn to color. “That place is all cleaned up. Great staff. No more complaints. Isn’t that right, Deputy?”

  “Absolutely,” Keith said.

  “Have you given free passes to Audra?”

  He nodded. ‘Yes, her and Blake.”

  “To Mr. Baker?” Nann continued.

  “Probably. Where is this going?”

  “Let’s just hold that thought for a moment. Deputy Schwenk, when the first responders arrived here, how did they get in?”

  “The front door was unlocked, but given the urgency, the deputies entered the home and preceded to the panic room. There’s no way to open that door from the outside,” he pointed. “A pry bar and a battering ram were used to break the frame around the lock.”

  “We can see many hidden spaces that have been opened up. How were these discovered?”

  “There was a hidden drawer in the base of the bear display that was opened. That tipped us off. It didn’t take long to discover the rest.”

  “And you found information that Blake Simmons used to blackmail people with?”

  Audra broke her angry silence. “I will not see my husband’s name dragged through the mud by a witch!”

  “Okay, lots of hidey holes,” Nann went on. “But the door was locked. Only Blake was inside. Could someone have locked the door on the way out?”

  “No, it’s quite the lock. Really, it’s just two sliding deadbolts on a wheel. Primitive but completely effective. It can’t be locked, or unlocked, from the outside.” Keith cracked his knuckles and shuffled his feet. “We all know this, Nann. Why did you bring these people here?”

  Time to drop some bombs. “Okay, most of this is conjecture, and it will take a thorough police investigation to prove it all. First off, Audra Simmons bought a love potion. She used it to attract Doug Baker.”

  Before anyone could protest, she held up her phone. Tink had took it at the AMN meeting. She scrolled through. Audra and Doug were caught in compromising poses, including a passionate kiss.

  “I don’t want to speculate too much, but Doug is kinda the opposite of Blake physically. How tall are you, Mr. Baker? Five four? Five three?”

  “How is that any of your business?”

  “And even if there’s some basis to your insane rambling, adultery isn’t a crime,” Gene Wozniak said.

  “No, it’s not,” Nann said. “Neither is managing a campaign that’s doomed to fail.”

  “What are you—?” Baker seemed to strangle on his own words.

  “When I talked to you, you convinced me that Blake was a shoo-in for the county seat. The truth is, he was in, what, fourth? Fifth place?”

  Keith held up his hands. “Whoa, whoa, are you saying that Mr. Baker murdered Blake Simmons because he was losing an election?”

  “Partly,” Nann said. “I mean, at first, it probably seemed like a good idea. If Blake was away on county business, that could facilitate his affair with Audra.”

  “Okay, Nann, I think we’ve heard enough.” Keith’s features cinched in anger.

  “But that wasn’t the only reason.” Nann shot him a pleading gesture. He returned a warning one. “Here’s the stuff that won’t ever go to trial, but it’s how I figured it out. The charms Audra, Anne and Helen purchased were anti-magic charms. At first, I thought they just had something against me personally. What they were really doing was hiding from Blake.”

  “Hiding?” Keith asked.

  Nann pointed to the desk. “I’m sure the crime scene photos will show a
n object on the desk at the time of the murder. A crystal ball on three clawed feet. I saw a similar one in the Simmons’ antique store. When you think about it, Blake had way too much information on people. Things he couldn’t know. Not unless he had some magical help.”

  “Blake had nothing to do with magic!” Audra protested.

  She walked to the desk, tracing the space where it once stood. “It was right. Here. A crystal ball. Maybe, in his scheme to rid Port Argent of anything magic he found, Blake actually discovered something really powerful. Something he couldn’t help but use.”

  “Like you say, this won’t ever come up in evidence in court,” Wozniak said. “But why would these women need to hide from him? If Audra was having an affair—”

  “Gene!” Audra gasped.

  “If. I said if. Then she would want to hide it from Blakes’ so called crystal ball. But why Anne? Why my wife?” Gene gave Helen hard eyes.

  Nann rifled through her conjure bag. “Blake was set on creating the greatest golf resort in the state. Even though your company was bankrupt. He was obsessed with it. However, the properties the redevelopment firm purchased have recently gone back on the market.”

  Barb Buford suddenly stood a little straighter.

  After a little rummaging, she came up with some paperwork. “In the meanwhile, the fraternal organization Blake was the president of was helping people repair houses. People who couldn’t afford it. AMN, Auxilium Malleo National, the Helping Hammers. Except they weren’t. Not completely.” She passed Keith the documents.

  He looked them over. “Okay, these are the same addresses. What does it mean?”

  “It means that AMN was fixing properties purchased by the redevelopment company. At first, the intent was to knock them all down and build a golf course. But that failed, went bankrupt, when the big investors pulled out. It left Lakeshore Properties holding the bag. This was how they were trying to recoup some of their losses. Using charity money, they fixed up their own holdings. They then sold them for a whole bunch more they paid for them.”

  “What?” Barb Buford suddenly sobered up. “No. That’s not right. I didn’t know anything about this.”

  “Of course not,” Nann said. “That’s why you don’t have an anti-magic charm. Blake was already blackmailing you. Would you have told him about this scheme, just to get out from under his thumb?”

  Barb’s silence was answer enough.

  “All right, then. You’ve got some evidence of some illegalities. Big deal,” Gene Wozniak didn’t take his hard eyes off the wife. “It still doesn’t get us anywhere closer to knowing who killed Blake.”

  Nann nodded. “Here’s the scenario. You were getting some of your investment back by rebuilding, renovating, and selling the homes you bought back when Amity Corners was depressed. Blake would’ve put a stop to it. Even if it meant selling out his wife. You used the charms so he couldn’t spy on you, but that couldn’t go on forever. Maybe he was too caught up in his campaign to notice right away, but a day was coming when he would blow the whistle. The man was obsessed with the golf resort, obsessed enough to try to scam me out of my house—twice.

  “Audra bought a love potion. She needed someone to do her dirty work. You, Doug Baker, killed Blake, because you were in love with Audra. You wanted to protect her. To keep her safe. To make her happy. She wouldn’t be any of those things if she was married to Blake. And, if I’m not mistaken, divorcing him would exclude her from the inheritance. It would go to Blake’s half-brother, Jim.”

  “You can’t prove a damn bit of this,” Baker said.

  “I can’t, no. But the police can.”

  “How did he do it?” Wozniak said. “Is Doug a witch, too?”

  “No. But he is the perfect candidate.”

  Keith finally started looking interested. “Perfect candidate how?”

  “The first responders never saw the murderer leave the house because the murderer didn’t leave the house. Not until long after the crime scene investigation was over.”

  “Because Audra was his alibi?” Wozniak asked.

  “No, the door was locked from the inside,” Keith said. And then he got it. “He was in this room all that time?”

  “Where? The cops found all the secret hiding spaces,” Anne said. “I read it in the paper.”

  “This is how.” Nann took out her cell phone and sent a text.

  Chapter 20

  A rumble sounded. All eyes turned to the taxidermy grizzly bear. It wobbled and jerked as if coming back to life. Anne Simmons let out a little shriek. The wildly posed animal split in half. Sweating and spitting, Zinnia emerged from inside the display.

  “It’s hot AF in there!”

  Mouths and eyes popped. Zinnia awkwardly disengaged from her bear pose. Using the secret door in the base as a step, she got out of the thing.

  “It was such an obvious hiding place that it was overlooked,” Nann said. “A hidden drawer was already found in the base. Plus, there were dozens of other secret stashes. Mr. Baker, you made your way into this room during the golf tournament. You surprised him and grabbed the axe held by that suit of armor.”

  All eyes turned from Zinnia and the bear to the medieval knight.

  “But you gave him enough time to call 911 before you did the deed. After that, it was a simple matter of secreting yourself inside the stuffed bear. I’m sure the police will uncover traces of Blake’s blood, and your DNA, hair and fibers. You must’ve been inside for hours.”

  “Oh, ick!” Zinnia frantically brushed at her face. “You didn’t tell me that part, Nancy Druid!”

  Nann walked over to the bear, lifting the top and exposing the space inside. “The bear looks huge. It stands, what, nine feet tall? But in order to fit inside, you have to be small. Zinnia is five feet tall—”

  “Five-two!” Zinnia said.

  “—And she can squeeze in. But in this cavity, there’s not a lot of room to bend down or flex your knees. I don’t think it was meant to hide a person. But if you’re tall, there’s no way you could hide in the bear. You’re not tall, Mr. Baker. You had motive. The bear gives you opportunity. This room is full of means.”

  “This is all nonsense!” Audra shouted.

  “Did you put him up to it, or did he act on his own initiative?” Nann asked.

  “You don’t understand!” the widow moaned. “He put all of our money in the stupid golf resort. All of it! We were going to lose it all. We were eating boxed macaroni and cheese for dinner. Sometimes without even milk.”

  “Audra, shut up and call your lawyer,” Doug Baker said. He turned to Keith. “I’d like to call my lawyer, if that’s alright with you.”

  Keith took out his cell phone. “I think we can all call our lawyers from the substation. Let me grab a giant-sized Uber to get you there.”

  Audra Simmons held onto little Doug Baker. She sobbed, “I don’t want to go to jail, Bubby, I don’t want you to go to jail.”

  Something shifted in Baker’s eyes. Maybe it was the love potion, the devotion potion, at work. Or maybe he just needed to get it off his chest. “Okay, witch, you got me. I killed the sonofabitch. For being cruel to the woman I loved. For bankrupting a company we shared. For being an oversize child with a compulsion to tattle. I thought he could win the damned election and get him out of our hair. Unfortunately, the voters saw right though him—a bully, a manipulator, a blustering bag of crap who was aging into a one big nobody. Arrest me, Deputy.”

  Keith blinked a few times then he produced handcuffs. “The rest of you stay put,” Deputy Schwenk said as he walked his prisoner out.

  Nann felt eyes on her. Even if she did solve this murder, they still didn’t like her. She wanted to crawl inside the bear and hide, but she was too tall. She felt a tug on her arm.

  Zinnia led her over to the disassembled pool table. She lowered her voice. “How the heck did you figure that all out, Nann?”

  Nann shrugged. “At first, I thought it was personal, the anti-magic charms. That’
s what was tripping me up. I almost missed the actual clues.”

  “What clues? Doug and Audra canoodling?”

  “No, I figured that out early on. It was the reason for the charms that I nearly missed. I should’ve figured it out when I was at Barb Buford's. There were a bunch of closed property files in her conference room. They were all on the proposed golf resort area. Heck, the whole thing was laid out right in front of me. If Lakeshore Properties were selling those, but Blake was still trying to ram the resort thing into shape, there had to be something going on,” Nann said.

  “But that was only part of it,” Zinnia said. “What about the Helping Hammers part?”

  “Oh, that was Margie. She said something about AMN fixing up empty houses. But Auxilium Malleo National shouldn’t be fixing empty houses. They’re whole charity thing is repairing houses of people who couldn’t afford it otherwise. Occupied homes, in other words.”

  “That’s why you sent Tink to follow Margie after lunch that day?”

  “Yep. The rest of it was public record. The house was owned by Lakeshore Properties LLC. It was in the proposed golf resort area. Click!” Nann shrugged. “Since Blake was still hot to steal my house out from under me, I knew he was still on the golf resort kick. But someone had another agenda. There were a few other clues. A box of magic items in the antiques store. It just didn’t add up that Blake had all the dirt on so many people. He wasn’t that smart. So how did he know all these secrets?”

  “Okay, whatever,” Zinnia said. “What about the bear?”

  “Oh, that.” Nann waved it away. “It’s a regular meme in locked room mysteries. The killer never leaves the room. Where else could it have been?”

  “Sure,” Zinnia said. “When you put it that way.”

  HOURS LATER, NANN FINALLY walked out to her car. Zinnia had had her cheek swabbed for DNA to exclude her from the bear evidence. Six crime scene techs rolled the bear in question out to a waiting van. A paddy wagon had taken Audra, Anne, and Helen to the station. A stunned Barb Buford walked to the sidewalk, a free woman.