Hex to Pay: A Witch Detective Cozy Mystery

by Stevie Day

  And as it turned out, the literal interpretation of Eye of Newt was an extremely effective base component for a great many spells. And thus the stories had permeated into the reality of witches and spellcraft. Newt eyes could be found by the jarful in every magic shop around the world.

  But this also created a problem: millions of blind Newts.

  That was why Alice usually passed over spells that called for that ingredient…

  As her meditation practice was winding down, Alice reached out toward her father. Communicating with someone half a world away in the Himalayas was not an easy thing to do. But Alice and her father had a strong bond, and this was something they did every night. If she reached out and her father was occupied, she could at least “leave a message.” He would almost always immediately drop what he was doing and find his own quiet place to meditate and reach out to her.

  Tonight he must have already been sitting, because their connection was nearly instantaneous.

  “Hi, Dad,” Alice thought.

  “Hi, Alice,” he responded.

  “Everything okay with you?”

  “All is well. Teaching some very dedicated students. Thoughtful ones, which is always a pleasure.”

  Alice smiled. “I’m sure the pleasure is all theirs.”

  “Bah,” he responded. Despite him dismissing the idea, Alice could feel his smile. “How are things with you?”

  There was a long silence. “I thought about Mom today.”

  “Me too,” he answered, and another long silence passed between them. “Any particular reason why?”

  “Just a case I’m working on.”

  “Anything I need to worry about?”

  “Of course not. Just trying to help out a sad guy.”

  He laughed. “Goodness. You are the sweetest soul I have ever known.”

  “You’re just saying that because you’re my father.”

  “I certainly am not,” he said. “I’ve met lots of souls and I can say without a shred of doubt that yours is the sweetest.”

  “Pshaw,” she said. “Stop embarrassing me.”

  “Did you just say ‘pshaw’?”

  “Did I tell you I saw Aunt Penny last week?” Alice asked, changing the subject.

  “No, you didn’t,” he replied. “Where?”

  “I went to see her. Surprised her with some flowers and candy at work.”

  “I bet she loved that.”

  “She did. But she deserves it.”

  “No argument from me,” her father said. “Any reason for the visit?”

  “Nope.”

  “And you’re not the sweetest soul…?”

  “Daaaad…”

  “Sorry.”

  “You should call her,” Alice said. “She misses you.”

  “I will, soon. It’s just that I’m three days away from the nearest phone. Besides, we’re always connected.”

  “That’s neat. Especially since she doesn’t practice magic anymore.”

  “True, but it’s innate and really strong with her, just like it is with you. She just has to be a little more careful.”

  Alice knew what he meant. Aunt Penny had been a strong witch and another great teacher when Alice was growing up. But something had gone wrong, something neither Aunt Penny nor her father would go into much detail about. And now she stayed away from magic completely.

  “’Kay, dad, I’m gonna get going now. I love you.”

  “I love you too, Alice. Be careful.”

  “Always am,” Alice said. They didn’t “break” their connection so much as let it fade away slowly.

  Alice got up, her meditation practice completed for the day. She could hear Mr. Ploppers grumbling something outside her door. Despite what he might have wanted her to believe, he was hungry for some attention, maybe even some lap time. Which was fine. Alice shared his mood.

  9

  Alice rang Barry Lombardi’s doorbell first thing in the morning. They’d chatted briefly the afternoon before, Alice again explaining the potential importance of Janet’s laptop and cellphone. He had still balked at the idea of handing them over, but there was enough of a softening in his voice for Alice to make the calculated move of dropping by uninvited and unexpected.

  Alice was usually friendly and polite, but when work required it, she had a fierceness that served her well. Generally, she considered dropping by unannounced to be rude and inconsiderate. But just like how asking blunt questions and watching for reactions could tell a lot, so could catching someone unprepared in their own home.

  Barry came to the door within seconds; Alice didn’t have to ring twice. As frazzled as he’d looked when he came to her office several days ago, he looked far worse today: barefoot, shorts, white t-shirt under a red button down plaid shirt that was open and hanging off his slumped shoulders. The right arm of the shirt was rolled up over his elbow and the other arm wasn’t rolled up at all. His mousy brown hair was not only disheveled but greatly resembled the classic picture of Albert Einstein.

  He had a crazed look in his eyes, as if he might explode and attack whoever he found outside his door. But the look changed quickly to confusion when he saw it was Alice. “Alice? Oh… Did we have an appointment?”

  “No, Barry, we don’t. I was on my way to the office and thought I’d stop by for the laptop and phone.”

  “The… what?”

  “The laptop and phone. Janet’s? Remember we—”

  “Oh!” Barry said, his eyes clearing up slightly. “Did I say yes to that? I don’t remember saying yes to that…” He ran his hand through his hair and looked down, clearly trying to make connections in his memory.

  “We talked last night, remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember that. But I don’t think I agreed to give them to you yet.”

  He looked up and Alice decided a quick turn in conversation might help.

  “Barry, you don’t look too healthy. Are you sleeping?”

  He laughed humorlessly. “Ha. Sleep? You kidding?”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I know this must be a hard time for you.”

  “Yeah,” he mumbled. “Jeez, where are my manners?” He forced an awkward smile. “Please, come in.”

  He held the door open and Alice entered. “Were you expecting someone else? You seemed really mad when you came to the door.”

  “No, no one in particular. I’ve just had a lot of people dropping by unannounced, some I haven’t seen in years. I know they mean well, but after a while it’s like, ‘Hey, let me have a few minutes of peace.’”

  Alice blushed but thought going forward with the illusion that they’d agreed to this meeting was her best move. “I understand. Well, if you want to just grab the laptop and phone, I’ll get out of your hair.”

  “O-okay,” he said, the confused look returning. He sighed heavily and looked Alice deep in the eyes. “Look, I don’t like this. But I trust you, so I’m going to let you have them. Just… can you give me about ten minutes? Just to…”

  He was fumbling for a reason to delay the hand-over until he’d had a chance to delete anything he might not want Alice to see, she surmised. She understood that and knew it wasn’t necessarily a sign of guilt. Everybody had a right to privacy and the right to choose exactly what they did and didn’t keep private. She’d always respected that right, for herself and others. And any time she considered crossing that line, her shame over invading Danny’s privacy a year ago would quickly resurface.

  Still… “Barry, I understand there’s going to be temptation to rummage through and delete things you might not want me to see. But if you truly want me to investigate Janet’s death thoroughly and find out if there was foul play here… Well, there definitely could be some crucial information on her devices.”

  Barry continued to hesitate.

  Alice pressed on. “You said a minute ago that you trust me. You should. I promise you I will be respectful, professional, and absolutely nothing I read or see will ever go an
ywhere other than my lil’ brain. Okay?”

  Barry looked at her for a long moment and again sighed heavily. “Okay. Just… give me five minutes?”

  Alice let out her breath. Five minutes was a reasonable compromise. “Sure, five minutes is fine.”

  “Okay,” he said. “The kitchen is right through there if you want to grab a drink or something. The living room is down the hall. Feel free to turn the TV on if you want.”

  “Thanks, Barry.”

  She watched him disappear up the stairs. She briefly considered the kitchen but felt a little rude taking something from his refrigerator, despite his invitation. Instead she wandered into the living room.

  It was messy. Not disgusting or dirty, just lived in, like a living room should be. And probably more so since Janet’s passing. She doubted Barry cared much about cleaning up in his current state.

  She looked around the room, a vague stirring in the back of her mind that she should somehow be looking for clues, making use of the five minutes. But what kind of clues should she be looking for exactly?

  She noticed an open door off the living room. Looking through, she saw two desks and assumed it was the den. It took her another moment to make the connection: one of those desks was where Janet had died.

  She stepped in. The first desk was sparse and seemed barely used. The chair was pushed all the way in and the desktop was clear. The second desk, however… Well, that one had clearly been Janet’s.

  Alice walked over and looked around. It was neat and clean, a couple of neatly framed pictures, presumably of family, positioned just out of the way of what would’ve been Janet’s primary workspace. There were two immaculate plants and for a moment Alice had hoped she might get some information from them. But alas… they were fake.

  Without giving it much thought, Alice plopped down into Janet’s brown faux suede chair and rested her arms on the arms of the chair. The chair was soft and comfortable. She allowed herself to sink into it.

  What had happened here? Whether poisoned or natural causes, had Janet known something was wrong? How fast had it been? Did she have time, before her face landed on her keyboard, to form a final thought? What would that last thought have been of? Her husband?

  If only Alice could just ask her.

  She suddenly sat straight up, her eyes widening as an idea formed.

  Maybe she actually could ask her?

  And just as quickly as the thought had occurred to her, she dismissed it. No. Such things were forbidden. Best to let that idea go.

  “What are you doing?”

  Alice stood up suddenly. Barry was in the doorway, laptop and phone in hand.

  “Oh, sorry, Barry,” she stammered. “I’m sorry. I was just—”

  “That was her chair,” he said.

  “I know. I mean, I assumed as much.”

  “You shouldn’t be sitting in her chair.”

  “I—”

  “She died in that chair.”

  Alice was mortified and couldn’t think of anything to say. She’d sat down innocently enough, perhaps hoping to get some kind of “feel” for Janet, whether magical or spiritual. She’d certainly meant no harm, but being caught there had made her feel somehow dirty.

  “Um, so, I guess you’re all set with those?” she asked, pointing at the laptop and phone. She scurried over and gently reached for both. Barry held onto them, his gaze still on his dead wife’s empty chair. With a tug, she managed to get them out of his hands.

  “Yeah,” Barry said absentmindedly. He finally looked at her, and Alice was relieved to see the anger seep away from his face, replaced again by a blank look of sadness.

  “I’ll have the devices back to you soon. Probably just a couple of days. Okay?”

  “Fine, whatever,” he said, then wandered back into the living room. He fell more than sat on his couch and seemed to immediately forget Alice was even there.

  Alice decided to say nothing more. Despite the dark turn, she’d gotten what she came for and it was time to go.

  Alice spent the rest of the day exploring Janet’s laptop and phone until deep into the evening. She had paused only to tend to Mr. Ploppers’s incredibly needy needs, and for another brief meditation session followed up with a “Goodnight, Dad.”

  She found things of interest for sure, but any hope of a “Eureka, I know who the killer is!” moment disappeared fairly early on.

  Janet had been as normal as normal could be, and seemingly pretty happy. She talked to her parents regularly, had friends, and an active lifestyle. She had no dark journal entries, no secret communications buried deep behind encrypted passwords. She had a Facebook page which she posted to pretty regularly, a Twitter account she only used to retweet things she found funny or moving, and an Instagram account where she occasionally posted selfies or meals she seemed particularly excited about.

  There were some texts to and from Dr. Dalton, all tame and business related. Able Johnstone texted her frequently, and although it looked like Janet didn’t respond to every text, the conversations were always friendly.

  She talked to Barry every day, all day, for years. They seemed close and happy, sometimes silly and sometimes sappy. There were gaps in the conversation, but some quick looks back on the calendar suggested to Alice that these were largely on weekends and holidays when the couple would’ve been together and had no need to text.

  The texts between the two over the past couple of weeks had become less and less frequent, and Alice was tempted to find that suspicious. But she’d expected, despite her requests to Barry, that he would’ve deleted some texts.

  If Barry had decided there were some things he wanted to stay between him and his now deceased wife, Alice couldn’t fault him. She probably would have done the same.

  A slowing down of texts over the last couple of weeks could just be normal life getting in the way. One or both of them could’ve gotten busy. Or maybe they’d been fighting the way normal couples fought and had just not been talking beyond basic check-ins and planning. There was certainly nothing leading up to the last couple of weeks to suggest Barry and Janet had remained anything other than happy.

  She decided to put this information in its proper place. She wouldn’t jump to conclusions, but wouldn’t dismiss it as nothing either. She made a note to simply ask Barry directly next time they spoke. Ask Barry directly. Or…

  Ask Janet directly.

  There was that thought again.

  Alice shivered. Her thoughts had turned morbid lately, ever since she accepted this job from Barry. Morbid wasn’t a place Alice resided in comfortably. She liked being a private eye, helping people out. But this was her first murder case, and she wondered for the first time if maybe this kind of investigating might not be for her. She was generally cheerful and positive and didn’t like the dark thoughts that kept popping into her head since she’d taken on the case.

  She decided she had done enough for the night and went to shut off Janet’s laptop before deciding to check one last thing. A quick Internet search confirmed her suspicions.

  There was no University of Western North Dakota.

  10

  Alice sat on her bed, readying herself for sleep. She glanced at her phone before placing it down on her nightstand.

  11:11.

  The Witching Hour.

  Well, one of the witching hours. Somewhere deep in her subconscious laid the reason why 11:11pm was what she always thought of as the Witching Hour. Traditionally that time was midnight or perhaps more frequently 3am.

  The truth was, any of these would do. So which came first, Alice had always wondered? The Witching Hour or the belief in the Witching Hour?

  She stared at her phone’s clock for a long time, waiting for 11:12. Hadn’t it been more than a minute? It must’ve been more than a minute. Why wasn’t it changing? What was she thinking?

  But she knew what she was thinking, or trying to avoid thinking.

  She could talk to Janet Lombardi.

  Alice
could contact the woman’s recently deceased spirit and ask her how she died and be done with this case, and bring closure to her grieving husband. Which was probably all he was really seeking, whether he knew that or not.

  She didn’t know the spell… but she knew where the spell was. It was in a book in her basement, on a bookshelf where she kept all her spell and academic books on magic.

  She’d never cast a spell from that particular book. But she could. She was capable. It could be done.

  The problem was that the spell made use of dark magic. And the use of dark magic was strictly forbidden.

  But… what did that mean, really? Forbidden by whom? Forbidden to whom?

  Her whole life, it was her father who had warned her against ever dabbling in dark magic. She’d been allowed to study it in scholarly pursuit, but never practice it. It’d been her father who used the word “forbidden” over and over, so much so that Alice had never thought to question why, at least not with any seriousness.

  Her father was a good man, a kind and compassionate teacher. He was powerful and learned in the ways of magic, but had chosen a peaceful path many years ago. It made sense that he would want to protect his only child from any sort of danger, even if that danger might be overblown or only in his head.

  Alice was powerful herself. She took her magic seriously, practiced it with care and conscience. She’d never really considered dabbling in dark magic because she’d always trusted her father implicitly. And even now, she knew that trust had never been misplaced. Her father wasn’t perfect, but he had also never let her down. If he’d said dark magic was “forbidden,” surely he’d had a good reason.

  But she couldn’t shake the thought. Maybe all the warnings had been overblown. Maybe she was old enough, smart enough, practiced enough, careful enough to successfully pull off such a powerful spell.

  No “maybe.” Definitely.

  Alice wasn’t much for arrogance, but there was nothing wrong with confidence.

  She’d only been on this case for a few days. But everything she had learned so far, without exception, pointed to natural causes. Emmitt and Eve had believed that, and she trusted those two despite their sometimes bumbling nature and reputation. The few people she’d interviewed so far from Janet’s life raised hardly any suspicions. Sure, it’d only been a few minutes with a couple of people, but that eureka moment didn’t come when talking to them.