Murder of the Month

by Tegan Maher

  Today, I needed to clean the yellow paint off the wrought-iron posts, so I pulled on my gloves, kicked on the exhaust fan Hunter and Matt had installed for me, and got to work. Sometimes I was content to leave some of the paint on the pieces because it lent them an old look, but with these, I wanted them clean and black, and I wasn't one to cheat by painting over the old stuff.

  As I rubbed and rinsed, and rubbed some more, I thought about the problems Rae was having. Her issue was different from ours. Rather than developing new gifts, the ones she had were growing stronger. Of course, that's how my changes had started too, so maybe that wasn't a good assumption to make.

  The way I saw it, the problem wasn't how to deal with the changes; we could figure that part out because we'd already learned to master the ones we had. In her case, she'd just have to adjust the wattage. No, the problem as I saw it was why they were changing. When we figured that out, we'd have our answers.

  I finished both posts and glanced at my phone. I'd only been at it for two hours, so I still had plenty of time to add the lightbulb fixtures to the posts. That was going to be a little tricky, but I'd figure something out.

  I was wrong, though. The more I tried to make it work, the more I disliked the idea. There was no way for me to hide the cord, and even if I hot-glued it to the post, it was still going to look like crap. I huffed out a breath and looked around, thinking. Nothing came to mind, so I moved on to the lampshades, hoping inspiration would strike while I was working on them.

  It didn't take me long to figure out that in order for the Plexiglas to adhere to the metal, I was going to have to remove the patina and oxidation from the inside. It would have been easier done before I cut out the designs, but that was spilt milk. Instead, I worked with what I had. Though it took me twice as long as it would have had I cleaned them first, I still had the colored film in place in less than an hour. I stuck it over my shop light just to get a general feel for what it would look like and was happy with the results.

  The bell above my front door jangled and a familiar Yoohoo! echoed back to me. I smiled as Anna Mae pushed her way through the swinging door and stopped, admiring the lamp.

  "Hey, sugar! How are you? It feels like I haven't seen you in a coon's age so I figured I'd pop in."

  "Hey, yourself," I said, putting the light back in the soon-to-be lampshade. "What do you think?"

  She puckered her lips to the side and furrowed her brow. "I like them. What are you using for stands, or are you makin' em table lamps and usin' clay jugs or somethin'?"

  "I'd planned on using those"—I motioned to the bedposts—"but they look like crap with the cords. I can't think of anything else to use though." The idea of using stoneware jugs appealed to me, though it wouldn’t work with the buckets. I made a mental note to stay on the lookout for some that would work.

  She looked around the shop, her gaze evaluating every item for potential. She finally stopped looking and smiled. "There," she said, pointing toward the back of the room.

  The only things there were the broom, the mop, and the break table where I worked sometimes.

  "Where?" If she had a brilliant idea, I was missing it. Not that I doubted her—she was every bit as creative as I was, if not more. Her shop, Things Remembered, carried items similar to mine, but she focused more on small items, clothes, jewelry, and re-homing antiques after she'd cleaned them up a little.

  "The wine bottles, silly." There were two wine bottles I'd forgotten about sitting on my back table. I picked one up and held it up to the light to see how opaque it was, then stuck the light shade over it to see how it looked. I liked it. The buckets were just the right size, and the burgundy glass of the bottle went well with the colored Plexiglas film I'd used.

  "Perfect," I said, "now just to decide whether or not to leave the labels." Some people liked stuff like that and some didn't. I tilted my head to the side, trying to figure which would be best.

  "Take 'em off," she said without hesitation.

  "You sure? They add flavor."

  She laughed. "If they were antiques, maybe, but Bluegrass Winery is still alive and well, and it ain't exactly a pinky-out type of wine. Trust me—there’s nothin’ that could add enough flavor to that wine to get me to drink it. I'd clean the bottle off and let that pretty burgundy glass shine if I were you." She made a face and gave me a look of mock disappointment. "I gotta admit—you let me down a little buying a three-dollar bottle of wine. Not that I'm against a bargain, but some things are just worth the extra few bucks."

  Trust Anna Mae to know her wines. Lord knows she'd probably drunk enough of it over the years she was married to Hank. If not, she should have.

  "Oh, no," I said, wagging my finger, unwilling to let her think I'd sink that low. I did have my standards. "Trust me—I didn't buy that. Somebody brought it to the summer cookout we hosted at the farm last month as a thank-you gift. The cheese in the basket was good, so I forgave them for bringing crappy wine." I cringed. "At least until Rae and I had to suffer through the wicked headaches we had the next morning after we drank it."

  She nodded. "That's what you get for drinkin' the cheap stuff." Reaching out to peel the label off one of the bottles, she turned the conversation to the talk of the town. "So ain't it just awful about Ida Crenshaw? Lordy, I don't know what this town's comin' to. Seems like folks have lost their minds sometimes."

  "Yeah," I said, fiddling with the wine bottles. "I'm going to her house with Rose in the morning to pick out an outfit for her."

  "Aw, that's so sweet of you. I don't really know her, but from the few times I ran into her when she was a kid, she seemed reserved."

  Anna Mae was several years older than we were, so it made sense she didn't know her.

  "Yeah, that's mostly because Ida wasn't one to spare the rod, metaphorically speaking. Not that she beat her, but she kept her on a pretty tight leash and could be downright hurtful if poor Rose even put her toe near the line." I picked up a couple of old pine banister caps and decided they'd be perfect for the base.

  "I knew Ida from some work I did with the auxiliary," Anna Mae continued, handing me the hole saw so I could cut a hole in the wooden end cap for the cord. "She wasn't pleasant, that's for sure. Her ex-husband though—he was nice."

  After I cut the first hole and turned off the saw, I agreed. "He was always nice to me too, at least what I can remember of him." He and Ida had divorced when Rose was a teenager and I'd only met him in passing, though I couldn’t help be a little disgusted over how he disappointed Rose. "He's got a new wife, according to Hunter."

  "Oh, believe me—I know, or at least I knew he was seeing somebody," she said, wrinkling her nose. "I saw them yesterday."

  That couldn’t be right; Rose had said he was in Atlanta. I put the saw down. “Yesterday, you say? And you’re sure?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Yesterday morning. I haven’t seen him in forever, but it was definitely his truck, and she was in the passenger seat. I saw ’em on the outskirts of town.”

  “And there’s no way you’re wrong? He told Rose he was in Atlanta.” If he said he was out of town but wasn’t, there had to be a reason for it, and I couldn’t think of a good one.

  “Nope,” she said, popping her P. I’m absolutely, 100 percent positive. It was at the tracks, and we had to wait because there was a train. They were right behind me. She was almost sitting in his lap.” She wrinkled her nose and gave a little shudder.

  I mulled that over for a few seconds. “Curious,” I said, and decided to think on it later when I had time to sort it out. I had lamps to finish.

  I took a couple seconds to zing the hole in the second banister end, then glanced up at her. "I take it you know her?"

  "Oh, do I ever," she said, flapping her hand. "Millie Lantz. She used to babysit me when I was little. The woman's a troll. Honestly, I don’t know what Felix sees in her."

  That was odd. "I didn't know she's from around here."

  Anna Mae nodded. "Yup. But she lit out of Key
hole Lake like her hair was on fire as soon as she turned legal. I'm surprised she's willin' to move back."

  I set down the drill and thought for a minute as I made scores around the bottoms of the wine bottles. I'd run boiling water over the score marks, then use cold water to make a clean break so I could attach them to the banister caps and run the cords up through them. "Is her family still here?"

  She paused for a minute, thinking. "You know, I don't know. I was so little I don't remember much about her except how hateful she was, and I haven't given her much thought since. We had one of those little furry mutts, and she used to think it was funny to tease him with food, then eat it herself.”

  What a peach. If the woman had relatives around, I'm sure Hunter would have known or would find out. If they were anything like her, he may do well to start looking in the prison system.

  "At any rate," I said, making the score around the bottom of the second bottle, "I reckon a big ole farmhouse sitting on a nice piece of land would be incentive enough for most folks to move back, regardless."

  Anna Mae narrowed her eyes, her gaze speculative and her mind obviously taking the same track as mine. "If she's as nasty as I remember, I could see her killin’ Ida to get it, if she thought she wouldn’t get caught. She was a real piece of work."

  I glanced up to see if she was being sarcastic, but she was serious as a heart attack. Looked like maybe it was time to find out more about Millie Lantz.

  CHAPTER 12

  HUNTER WAS ALREADY at the farm when I got home. Since he was in street clothes rather than his uniform, I assumed that meant he was already done for the day. He and Matt were in the garage fiddling with the bikes, and Gabi and Shelby were in the barn taking care of the horses.

  I pulled into my regular spot in front of the house, then trotted over to say hi.

  “Hey you!” I rose on my tiptoes for a quick kiss. “I figured you’d be later since you had to talk to the ladies from the auxiliary.”

  Wiping the grease off his hands with a rag, he pulled me in for a hug and an Eskimo kiss. “I got lucky ...sort of. They had a meeting this afternoon, so I caught them all in one spot.”

  I raised a brow as I pulled back to see him. “You go sort of lucky?”

  “Well, yeah. For one thing, they did their best to rope me into building the framework of their Christmas float. Second, Ida didn’t mention anything to anybody about Felix getting remarried, though they did say she’d made a few vague comments about growing old alone lately, which makes me wonder if she knew after all.”

  I puckered my lips and pushed them to the side. “If she knew he got married, I can see how she’d feel that way, so maybe she did know. If she did, I don’t think she said anything to Rose about it. I talked to her this morning. She didn’t mention it, and I’d think she would have.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gabi leading her horse, Mayhem, into the barn and felt guilty for letting her and Shelby do all the work. I stepped back and turned toward her. “Let me go help them, then we can relax.”

  “Finally,” Matt said, teasing. “We were kinda in the middle of a two-man job here, and I’m squatting here holding a fuel line while you two make googly eyes and maul each other.”

  Scrunching my nose at him, I left the garage and joined the girls. It didn’t take us long to get the chores knocked out. While they finished up with the horses, I fed the chickens and gathered the eggs, pleasantly surprised by how many there were.

  We’d gotten a couple good laying hens from Harry and Stella Stewart, and older couple who lived down the road from me. He’d been a horse trainer in his youth, and I’d had a rescue who needed more attention than I could give him. In an odd twist of events, the horse had ended up adopting them, and we’d become good friends as well as neighbors since then. Thinking of the couple—Stella round and merry and Harry wiry and gruff—made me smile, and I reminded myself to let them know about the cookout we were having the following weekend.

  When I took the eggs into the house, I grabbed a six-pack of beer out of the fridge along with a coke for Shelby and carried them to the porch where everyone had gathered.

  “Didn’t you say TJ and Moira were coming over this evening?” Gabi asked, popping the top off her bottle.

  I gave myself a mental forehead slap as I sat down in the swing next to Hunter. In all the hubbub, I’d completely forgotten. TJ and Moira were two women I’d met on my very first pick in Eagle Gap, and we’d since become friends. TJ was a witch whose primary gift was, in layman’s terms, talking to spirits. It had taken her a while to accept the whole magic is real thing, though.

  She’d been adopted as a baby and hadn’t even known she had any biological family—or that she was a witch—until her aunt Nora, a medium and master herbalist, passed and left TJ her house. TJ’s original plan had been to sell it and go back to Virginia where she lived, but Nora had a different plan. When one woman who was looking at the house suggested she’d tear out Nora’s prize rose bushes, things got real. Nora, who’d finally gotten her post-life sea legs, let it be known loud and clear that would never happen.

  When it got out that the house was haunted, any hope of a sale flew out the window, and TJ and her friend Moira left Virginia in the rear view mirror.

  In addition to being a medium, TJ also had the power of persuasion. Since she’d gotten a late start at being a witch, she’d jump into our lessons sometimes to learn how to control it. Having our own ghosts around was one thing, but it seemed strangers who hadn’t crossed over were also attracted to her, and some of them were none too happy about being departed. Some had unfinished business, some just wanted somebody to talk to, and some made no sense at all. She wanted to learn how to shut them out, but so far, we hadn’t found the valve to her paranormal spigot.

  “Yeah, I did,” I replied to Gabi. “I’d forgotten about it though.” I took a pull off my beer, then checked the time on my phone. “As a matter of fact, they should be here any minute.”

  As I said it, a car came around the bend in the drive, but it was Rae. I hoped her day had gone better, because she was late getting there. Normally, she would have been closed up more than an hour ago.

  After she pulled up and got out, she took the porch steps two at a time and joined us, grabbing the last beer out of the six-pack and plopping down in a rocking chair.

  “Holy cow, what a beast of a day!” she said as she popped the top and took a long swig.

  I raised a brow. “How so? And why are you so late?”

  “Yeah,” Shelby said, smirking. “Is everything okay? You didn’t shrink your shop did you?”

  Rae scowled at her. “No, I didn’t shrink my shop, brat, though I’m considering shrinking your vocal cords. I’ll have you know I didn’t do any magic at all today. That’s why I’m so late; I was afraid I’d set the mop and broom into an uncontrollable frenzy if I took a shortcut, and that would be bad for business if anybody saw.”

  “What about Levana?” Matt asked from where he was sitting on the steps. “Couldn’t she do some bibbidy bobbity boo to help?” He wiggled his fingers.

  Levana was a witch who’d arrived in Keyhole right as everything started to go crazy last Christmas. In fact, she’d been all wrapped up in the crazy, but that’s another story, too, though it’s short.

  Rae shook her head. “I wish. She was off today, so it was just Angel and me. That means we did it the old-fashioned way, and man, is my back killing me.”

  Shelby laughed. “Maybe you should do it that way more often, then.”

  Rae shoved her with her toe. “Or maybe I should talk to Addy and tell her I need your help, then you can come do it the old-fashioned way.”

  “No way,” Shelby answered. “I like working with Doc, and I start school in a few days, anyway.”

  She’d been working with Will, the local veterinarian, for several months alongside her boyfriend, Will’s nephew, Cody. She’d become quite the hand at pulling calves, doctoring horses, and taking care of sick animal
s in general and was planning to go to college to follow in his footsteps.

  Another car approached, cutting off Raeann’s response. Two cars, actually. Camille’s was first, followed by TJ’s truck a short distance behind. Luckily, they were both close enough friends that I didn’t feel the need to get off the swing to greet them. Hunter was rubbing the knots out of the back of my neck, and I wasn’t in any hurry for him to stop. I loved my job, but bending over to make sure I got the details right killed my back and neck.

  “Hey, Camille!” Shelby called as her mentor climbed out of her car. I was surprised to see she was dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt rather than her usual business suit she wore to her job with the Council of Witches.

  “Were you off today?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she replied as she stepped up onto the porch and took a seat in the other rocker. “Sort of, anyway. We’re having some problems up toward Atlanta. Several herbalists have had some of their rare herbs and other potions ingredients stolen, and I thought I was going to have to go up there. Turns out, they’d already done all the spells I would have tried and they’re all more than competent, so the Council decided it wasn’t worth the expense of sending me.”

  “What all was stolen?” I asked.

  “I’m not allowed to say,” she answered, “but I’m getting worried about it. The combination of missing items is only found in a handful of spells, and none of them are good.”

  That didn’t sound good, but she was good at her job; I had no doubt she’d figure it out.

  By that point, TJ and Moira had made their way to the porch.

  “Hey everyone,” TJ said.

  “What’s up?” Moira asked, then glanced at the beers. “Got any more of those?”

  “Of course,” I said, starting to get up. Shelby waved me off and ran into the house, the screen door slapping shut behind her. In just a couple seconds, she emerged with another six-pack and passed it around.