The Magic of Murder (14 page)

“He won’t,” Roger said. “The guys in the car aren’t ours. They’re Feds—DEA most likely.”

“DEA?” Rebecca and I rasped in harmony.

What was going on here? Someone emptied a clip into Jimmy Osborn’s chest in a dark alley, then that someone tried to fry me like a rasher of bacon—I had no doubt the two were connected—and now the DEA thought I had a stash of drugs in my house? How did I get in the middle of this mess? All I’d done was try out a simple divination rite.
Don’t fool around with anything you read in Sarah Goode’s
book
, Rebecca had warned me. Was that only two days ago? Her words now slammed around in my brain like Thor was in there swinging his hammer. She was right: the spell I’d played with had unintended consequences. Not the kind
of socio-economic consequences Robert K. Merton wrote about
in 1936 (I’d learned about him years ago while researching a story), but still rife with potential disaster.

I grabbed my head. I hoped Rebecca had a remedy in her bag for the sharp pain shooting all the way to my toes.

“Hey, take it easy,” Roger said. He swiveled to Rebecca. “Get her something, would you?”

With a deep what-am-I-gonna-do-with-her sigh, she rose. Instead of going to the kitchen to grab a remedy from her shoulder bag, she pulled a bottle of Johnny Walker from the bottom cabinet of my étagère.

While she poured us both a neat glassful, Roger explained, “They’re not after
you
. It’s Kevin they want. They figure if he’s so anxious to get money from you, he’ll be back.”

“How do you know?” I turned to Rebecca. “How can he know?”

“The DEA’s involved?” Rebecca asked. She
swallowed some scotch and poured another.

From her reaction, I wondered what else my friend carried around in her shoulder bag. Marijuana, maybe? I’d read somewhere pot helps settle a witch’s mind so she can focus on her spell. If Rebecca had any illegal drugs, maybe she feared the DEA would burst in, and she would wind up dangling from a rope next to me on Gallows Hill, hanged side-by-side like our ancestors.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Roger said. “When
I caught up with Woody, he was talking to a guy—getting bawled out by him, actually. I managed to get close enough to overhear. Apparently, the Feds have been trying to shut down a drug ring in Buffalo for more than a year.”

Wine, scotch: the hot pain in my head drifted behind a cloud. My tongue felt thick. Roger’s voice now sounded as though it came from my kitchen or maybe from my backyard. I forced myself to concentrate.

“Drugs? Someone’s feeding drugs to buffaloes?” I asked.

Roger laughed. “You’ve had quite enough alcohol for one day.” He took the half-filled glass from my hand and set it on the coffee table.

Elvira squiggled free of my arm and leaped onto the table. As if it were her bowl of milk, she began to lap up the scotch.

Roger shooed her away. “This cat’s as bad as you two,”
he remarked.

Elvira grinned up at him from the floor and her tongue moved slowly across her lips. It was as though she said,
Where’s that stuff been all my life?

Leaning back against the cushions, Roger said, “All of you try to focus. From what I could make out, the Feds think a cop may be involved in the drug ring, and the guy with Woody said where there’s one there’s probably more.”

“So Jim Osborn’s death is about narcotics?” Rebecca asked.

“Seems to be,” Roger said. “They think the ring’s operating in Niagara Falls, too. Makes sense, now there’s a casino here. They’ve decided Jimmy’s murder is proof the drugs have crossed into the Falls.”

I was shocked. Well, as shocked as I could get in my semi-inebriated condition. “Jimmy?” I said. “But you told me you would have known if he was involved in something like drugs.”

Roger shrugged.

I gnawed on the idea for minute. Jimmy Osborn had been my friend. Margaret was my friend. I felt as though I would betray them if I believed for even a minute Jimmy could be part of a drug ring. I’d buried my initial suspicion by then. Now it rushed back: the Corvette in the Osborns' driveway, the expensive wedding they’d given their daughter—where had the money for such things come from?

Roger broke into the haze of my thoughts. “Anyhow, now I know why Woody won’t let the guys in my squad, and especially me, work the case. With the Feds not knowing how deep it goes in the department, his hands are tied.”

“And Kevin?” I asked.

With Rebecca’s warning about unexpected consequences echoing in my recollection
, I trembled at the idea my ex was involved. A new guilt rose like acid from my stomach and my face grew warm. I recalled the spell Rebecca and I had thrown at Kevin. Our candles and herbs and chants had caused him to lose his job as an insurance agent, and go bankrupt—it happened so soon afterward, I was sure our spell was the cause. I hadn’t foreseen the hex might lead him down a dark path. Now he was a hunted drug runner.

As if he read my thoughts, Roger said, “They want him to testify against the ones who are behind this.”

No wonder Kevin was so panicked. I’d read in the
newspaper and seen television movies about how dangerous
it was to testify against drug lords. Witnesses disappeared, their bones found years later when an old building was torn down. Yes, most of such plots are made up by people like me. Knowing this didn’t help, and it didn’t matter that I had
little love left for my ex. Damn my imagination! Half-soused
and all scared, no room remained in my mind for logic.

“This is all my fault!” I blurted out.

Roger’s eyes went from me to Rebecca. “What did you two do?” he demanded.

“Uh…nothing,” she stammered.

“Well…” I said.

Elvira knew damn well what we had done. She’d been there. Now she was back on the coffee table, lapping at the glass of scotch. I guess she recognized the accusation in Roger’s voice.

I sure did. His tone was like a hangover remedy.

Rebecca focused on her glass. My eyes wandered around the room.

Earlier, when I thought Rebecca might be the killer, I’d wondered if I could swat her with Sarah Goode’s book and escape out the French doors. Now, I wondered if I could escape from Roger’s stern look in such a way.

Chapter Fifteen

Something Rotten in Niagara Falls

            
 
I
n fits and starts, and with a lot of hemming and hawing, in tandem Rebecca and I told Roger about the candles and wine and the stuffed doll we used as the centerpiece of our vengeance ceremony. Of course, we left out some of the details—he had no need to know the name of the goddess we invoked, what we promised her, or how scantily we were clad (even thinking about the half-dressed
state we were in makes me blush). When we finally finished,
he shook his head and swallowed the rest of his wine.

“You can’t really believe in this stuff,” he said.

Rebecca had a mischievous glint in her eyes.

“The spell worked, didn’t it?” I said as I wiped away tears of guilt.

Elvira’s head came up so fast she nearly slid off the coffee table.

“Come on now, your chanting didn’t do a thing,” Roger
said. “Think about it logically. Once Kevin lost his job, it wasn’t a long leap for him down the rabbit hole. I didn’t know him well, Emlyn, but I’d seen enough of him to lay odds he’d go looking for a fast buck in a scheme that didn’t require much effort.”

I wouldn’t surrender my guilt so easily—my mother’s ministrations left it too well embedded. Roger was just being kind. “You don’t know anything of the sort,” I insisted.

“I know what I saw. He was my neighbor for the three years you were married. He was happy to move here to your parents’ house. In fact, I once overheard him say he was glad he glommed onto a woman with assets. And I saw the way he treated you—like a housemaid. No, I didn’t like it, and I didn’t like him much.”

“He worked hard,” I said. “All those late nights visiting
clients.”

I don’t know why I defended Kevin. Guilt, I guess, is a rapist ripping away the clothes of one’s reason.

“You think he was visiting clients?” Roger said. “I saw him a couple of nights at Flannery’s, a drink in one hand and a woman in his other.”

My hand flew to my mouth. A sob burst from my throat.

“Stop it!” Rebecca said. “That was mean.”

Roger’s brows arched. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.”

“I always knew what Kevin is,” I moaned.

He took my hand. “The bastard didn’t deserve you.”

I gazed into Roger’s soft hazel eyes and, for a moment, forgot my hurt.

Rebecca peered over the rim of her glass. Her sly smile told me she was pleased she might have written, produced, and directed this scene. “If you lovebirds are finished cooing,” she said, at last, “I’d like to remind you of something.”

Without breaking eye contact with me, Roger asked—almost whispered, “What?”

“You said Kevin turned to crime after he lost his job.”

“Yeah?”

“It strikes me you started in the middle. Our spell
did
work. It caused him to get fired—”

My tears erupted again. “See, I’m the cause of whatever
he’s done. That means Jimmy…his murder was also my fault!”

Rebecca handed me a tissue. “It wasn’t just you, Emlyn.
I was part of it. And what we did we can undo.”

I didn’t feel any less to blame.

“Magic got him fired?” Roger said. “I doubt that.”

I sniffed and blew my nose. “What did it then?”

He stretched his legs onto the coffee table. His hands behind his head, he said, “There a logical answer to that, too. Shouldn’t be very hard to learn what it is.”

“Without your boss finding out you’re asking questions?” Rebecca said.

A grin spread across Roger’s face. “Yeah, there’s that.”

“Please, don’t do anything stupid,” I said. Now my bubble of guilt expanded to envelop the trouble Roger was about to get into. It would be another unexpected consequence flowing from my need for revenge.

“Sitting here, just talking about who might have done what, is stupid,” Roger said. “Doing nothing about it is stupid. And I’ll tell you something—I’m tired of being stupid.”

“But Woody said—”

“Yeah, Woody. He’s doing nothing and using the Feds as an excuse to do it. You saw what happened when you told him his wife and Kevin were both at the book signing? He couldn’t get out of here fast enough. My boss, Chief Woodward, is covering for someone.”

My mind flashed to the brief conversation I had with Amy Woodward at the Osborn funeral. Was it my imagination, or had she gone pale when I told her how lucky she was to have a steadfast husband? I’d also seen Kevin at the funeral. Then Amy had been at Main Street Books. For my reading and signing, she told me. But when I said hello, she seemed surprised to see me. Then, a minute later, I saw Kevin. He was in trouble, he said. He came because he knew I’d be there. After the way he’d skulked in my backyard then tried to cadge money from me, I believed him.

My imagination spun like an old 33
1
/
3
rpm record on an older 78 rpm turntable (before there were tapes and CDs, there were record players—I know about record players because my parents had one). I began to construct scenarios. Had Kevin come to again beg me for money, or was he really looking for Amy?

“What’s going on in that brain of yours?” Roger asked.

The thought,
Solve the crime to end the guilt
, rushed to my mind. “Huh? What makes you think—?”

“Don’t give me that, Emlyn. I’ve watched you.” He leaned over, and tapped my forehead with his finger. “When your eyes go this narrow, big cogwheels are turning in there.”

“I was just thinking—”

“Uh-oh,” Rebecca said.

“No, really. I just remembered something.”

“Yeah?” they both said.

“Well, I could be wrong. And even if I’m not, it might not mean anything.”

“Let me judge that,” Roger said.

I told them what I’d seen during Jimmy’s funeral, and then among the stacks of books before my reading.

“You think they planned a—what do you writers call it—a tryst?” Rebecca asked.

“A slime bucket like Kevin Reinhart with a woman like Amy Woodward?” Roger said. “Even if I caught them in bed together, I wouldn’t believe it.”

Rebecca considered this for a moment. “Both of them in the same place at the same time twice, it can’t just be a coincidence.”

“Maybe not.” Deep furrows on his forehead, Roger glanced to the French doors. It was as if he thought he might see my ex slip from tree to tree in my backyard. “A guy like Kevin, desperate for money—blackmail is more likely.”

“What could Amy Woodward be blackmailed over?” I asked.

“No, wait,” Rebecca said. “You just told us the way she reacted at the cemetery. Maybe Kevin found out she’s having an affair.”

Roger rubbed the graying hair at his temple. “I don’t see it. Still, the way Woody reacted this evening, maybe he thinks something like that is going on. And with the Feds hunting for Kevin—”

“Drugs. The two of them in it together. And right under
your boss’s nose.” Rebecca nodded, as if she concluded a husband really could be so dense.

“No. It just doesn’t add,” Roger said. “No matter how I try, I can’t put Amy in Kevin’s circle.

Elvira was again on the coffee table, her lascivious pink eyes on the glass of scotch.

“Hey, that’s not good for you.” Roger shoved her away.

“This is all speculation,” I said, though it was me who
started speculating in the first place. “Besides, whether Amy
Woodward and my ex are part of the drug ring or they’re having an affair—”

“Or both,” Rebecca offered.

“Even then, what does it have to do with Jimmy getting murdered? Eight bullets in the chest isn’t a hit. What would either of them be so angry about?” I thought again about the cost of a new Corvette and the Osborn wedding. “But, if they’re having an affair and Jimmy found out—could it be
he
was the blackmailer?”

“Or maybe the Osborn killing has nothing to do with Kevin and Amy Woodward,” Rebecca said.

“Damned if I know,” Roger said. “There are so many possibilities, I feel like I don’t know anything anymore. But, all this happening in the same circle of people at the same time, it sure smells like it’s tied together.”

“How?” Rebecca asked.

With a grunt, Roger pulled his feet from the coffee table. “That’s what I’m gonna find out.”

He grabbed his coat from the back of the kitchen chair. After a glance at the front door, he crossed the living room and pulled the French doors open. Wind blowing his hair, he said, “No reason the Feds parked out front need to know
I’ve left.” As he slipped into the night, he added, “You
have my cell number. Call if anyone tries to get in.”

***

The icy breeze Roger let into my house blew away the alcohol cloud in my mind, and with it, my feeling of guilt. Only anger was left. I grabbed a crutch and hobbled to the French doors. With the blind pulled aside, I peeked out. The azalea bushes slapped the glass. The branches of the naked beech tree in the center of my yard waved and hissed. The stand of trees guarding the Niagara River was a thick shadow. My calendar said this was the day of a new moon, though it was hard to tell with the sky so overcast.

After gazing around the yard to be certain my ex didn’t lurk back there, I said, “Is anyone out front?”

Rebecca went to kitchen, and looked out the window. “The only thing I see is Roger’s car,” she said. “I thought he’s going to look for his boss.”

“He is. Or maybe he’s trying to find Kevin.”

“On foot?”

“I doubt it. He keeps a Harley under a tarp on the far side of his garage. He’ll probably walk it around the curve in the road before he starts it up.”

“But, to get to the city he’ll still need to pass the guys who’re watching your house.”

“Uh-uh. Roger knows maybe fifteen ways to circle around them. I’ll bet he’ll start out headed toward Buffalo, turn up Ward Road, and go through North Tonawanda.”

Back in the living room, Rebecca began to pick up the wine glasses.

“Leave those. We’ve got work to do.”

A glass in each hand, she said, “What are you thinking?” She seemed afraid to look at me.

Stone sober, I’d stumbled into the middle of this swamp. I guess Rebecca figured with half a bottle of Varney Estates and a touch of Johnny Walker sloshing
through my veins, I was about to drag her into the morass.

“I need to find out if my idiot ex was fooling around with Amy Woodward.”

Rebecca hooded her eyes. “You’re not gonna try another divination rite.”

It wasn’t a question. I didn’t answer.

She straightened up. “Don’t you ever learn?”

I shrugged. “The killer’s come after me twice. Next time he might succeed. Don’t you see? I’ve got nothing to lose. Things can’t get much worse.”

It was a foolish thing to say. Tweaking the nose of fate, even a little bit, is never a bright thing to do. But recently, bright ideas hadn’t been my forte.

Rebecca glanced toward the front door.

“You can leave if you’re afraid the spell will boomerang,” I said.

She sighed and put down the glasses. “I didn’t put out the fire on your leg just to let you go up in smoke now. No, I’m staying. Someone’s gotta keep you from blowing yourself up.”

“I don’t plan to blow either of us up,” I said, and turned a complete circle. “Where’s Elvira? I need her for this.”

Rebecca bent low enough to see under the coffee table. The cat was curled up on the floor, snoring. Except for the broad, stupid grin on her face, the animal resembled a giant white Nerf ball. “Not much of a drinker,” she said. “Come to think of it, maybe Elvira has the right idea. Let’s pop another cork.”

I refused to be distracted. Reaching for my other crutch,
I said, “No. I’ve got to unravel who’s after me. I won’t be safe till I do.”

“But the last time you tried this—”

Rebecca’s objection was rather mild, I thought. With her hip flung out, she stared at the ancient book on my coffee table.

“I must have misread Sarah Goode’s instructions,” I said. “You’ll help me figure out what I did wrong.”

That Sarah’s book was more a diary than a user’s manual didn’t register at the moment.

This time Rebecca’s sigh was one of surrender. I knew then, for all her resistance, my friend wanted to see what spells Sarah wrote about, and learn if they actually worked. She couldn’t try them by herself. It needed someone who had the right genes, she’d told me when we started to explore my heritage months before. It needed old Sarah’s genes.

With no further argument, she lifted the book so carefully it might have been the Holy Grail. She sat in the wingback chair and opened the book to where I had slid a folded sheet from my yellow pad. She had far less trouble than I with the arcane prose. Aloud, she read: