Murder Above the Fold Read online

  Clara sighed; it was probably best for her to break the news. Gently, as the gravity of the situation warranted. “Leanne, I hate to have to tell you this, but Marsha won’t be coming in today. She passed away last night.”

  Chapter Four

  Leanne blinked and looked back and forth between Clara and Mag with the disbelief that follows devastating news. Every ounce of color drained from her face, she mouthed the word no, and then promptly burst into tears. “What are you talking about? That can’t be true. How?”

  “It seems she fell from Spurwink Bridge.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe it was someone else. A mistake.”

  “I’m sorry,” Clara said, her face kind, “but we were the ones who found her. There’s no mistake.”

  Shaking, Leanne stumbled toward her desk chair, sinking into it as though she could no longer trust her legs to hold her up.

  “From the bridge? Oh, no. I’ve tried telling her not to go that way at night, but she never listens. Listened, I mean. If only…” Leanne’s voice shook as she revised her statement to the past tense. Fresh tears ran in tracks down cheeks heavily coated with rouge and full-coverage concealer just a shade too dark for her porcelain complexion. “Was it quick, or did she…you know…suffer?”

  Mag shot Clara a pointed look. Basic human interaction was Clara’s strong suit, so Mag allowed her to take the reins, and began glancing around the office with narrowed eyes.

  “No, I don’t believe she did. The police seem to think it happened quickly.” Clara had no idea whether the statement was truthful or not, but she knew with complete conviction it was what Leanne needed to hear.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said as the girl continued to cry. “I didn’t realize you two were so close.” She fished for information under the guise of concern, the heavy disadvantage of being new in town weighing on her mind.

  Once Mag was on the scent of wrong-doing there would be no stopping her. Doggedly, she would insert herself—and Clara by extension—into the investigation until the solution presented itself. Hopping on board was Clara’s only option, and the fact that she’d genuinely liked Marsha during their brief meeting provided additional motivation.

  “Marsha was the best friend I’ve had in years. I mean, we had our disagreements, but that’s normal. You’re family; you must know what I’m talking about.”

  You couldn’t possibly imagine, Clara thought while Mag snorted her agreement from across the room.

  “When did you see her last?”

  “Yesterday evening, about seven o’clock. When I left, Marsha was trying to install the drivers for that new printer, ranting about not being able to find the model number and cussing out Perry for not answering his phone. But he was coming in just as I was heading out. I yelled at him about the blown bulb in the back room. He’s got a key; he could have fixed it anytime.” If the initial estimate was correct, Leanne had just narrowed the time of death down by an hour.

  “I was in a rush to get home and help put the kids to bed. Dylan is great with them, but he sometimes forgets to make them brush their teeth,” she said with a fond but watery smile.

  Clara made a mental note to strike up a mock casual conversation with Perry Weatherall the next time opportunity arose, and while she was pondering the implications, an awkward silence fell.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I need to close up here and go…” Leanne trailed off on a sob and a hard swallow before she pulled herself back together. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid there may be a delay in placing your ad. I’m sure you understand there might not even be a paper after what’s happened.”

  Clara nodded in understanding, “Of course, that’s the least of our concern right now.”

  “Thank you for stopping by and telling me about Marsha. I’ll give you a call when things have been properly sorted.” Leanne’s voice cracked with emotion and it became clear she needed a moment of privacy to process everything she’d just learned.

  “Do you mind if I use your restroom first?” Mag pasted on her best old lady with a weak bladder face and squeezed her legs together for dramatic effect.

  “Sure, it’s just through there.” Leanne pointed to a door near the rear of the room, the same one that housed the back exit where Perry and Bryer had delivered the printer the day before. “Lock the back door when you let yourselves out, please.” Leanne bustled out through the front and, before turning and heading toward the town square. locked that door from the outside.

  “Not too bright, is she? Just walking out the door and leaving strangers to mind the store like that.”

  “Grief makes people do strange things sometimes.” Eyes soft with empathy, Clara stood for a moment wondering what would happen to the paper with Marsha no longer at the helm.

  “Clarie! Quick, come here.” Mag’s muffled voice wafted in from the back hallway, interrupting Clara’s reverie.

  Part storage and part museum of printing history, the back room was jam-packed with bits of leftover things. A hulk of an old printing press squatted in one corner and looked as if all it needed was a bit of oil and a thorough dusting before it would be ready to spark back to life. The sharp scent of ink lingered around the rollers.

  Boxes piled high in the corner opposite the press, and the new laser printer stood in the space along the wall in between. More boxes lay under a long table that took up half of the fourth wall, the one to the left of the back door.

  “I was right! Look what I found stuck in the door jamb.” Mag held up a piece of paisley printed cloth, a perfect match to the dress Marsha had been wearing when she died. Clara brandished her cell phone, flicked at the screen a couple times to pull up the morbid photographs she’d taken of the body, and verified—unnecessarily, as far as Mag was concerned—that the scrap of fabric had been torn from Marsha’s bodice.

  “You know what this means, don’t you? We’re standing right in the middle of the scene of the crime!”

  “A crime of fashion?” Clara replied dryly.

  “And it was most definitely murder.” Excited, Mag ignored the comment.

  “Technically, we know nothing of the sort. Marsha might have snagged her dress on the door on her way out.” Clara replied with caution, always the more level-headed of the two, at least to her mind. Mag tended to see murder and mayhem and conspiracies around every corner.

  “If you still don’t trust my instincts after two and a half centuries, Clarie, we’ve got some serious trust issues to work through.” Mag sighed, wishing for once her sister didn’t think she’d gone off half-cocked. Her body might look an advanced age, but her mind was still sharp as a tack.

  Clara mimicked Mag’s uneasy inhalation of breath, “I believe there’s something wonky going on here, but we have to account for all possibilities. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Weren’t you paying attention to the body? The shape of this scrap matches the torn piece from the bodice of Marsha’s dress. Who snags their boobs on a door jamb while exiting a building? She’d have had to bend all the way over, which makes no sense.”

  “Neither does it being torn during a scuffle. It’s an odd position to be in regardless.”

  “Not if someone carried her,” Mag held her arms in front of her, as if cradling a body, “and stepped sideways through the door. She may only have been unconscious at that point. I caught no trace of blood when I scanned the office.”

  It disturbed Clara to know Mag could sniff out the scent as easily as a bloodhound. Perhaps she’d once again underestimated her sister.

  Patting her pockets, Mag pulled out a vial of potion that shimmered all the colors of a sunset and laid it on the table. Fascinated, Clara watched as two more vials and several packets joined the first, along with a twist of knotted string, a stubby black candle, a miniature crystal ball, an amulet, and a chicken foot.

  “Gotta hand it to you, you certainly are prepared.”

  “I’m traveling light these days, but you never know when you might need a few things and if the killer
used bleach to clean up after…you know…I could have missed it.” The barb of Clara’s sarcasm missed its mark as several more items landed on the slick surface. Elbow deep in a pocket that looked to be big enough to hold two nose tissues and a paperclip, and it still didn’t seem as though Mag had found the particular item she wanted.

  Patiently, if with a smirk, Clara waited and watched.

  “I know I have…oh, found it.” Mag pulled a packet of folded and sealed waxed paper from the depths and handed it to her sister before methodically returning everything else to her pockets.

  “What is it?” Curious, Clara sniffed at the seal.

  “Careful with that. It’s a mix of pixie dust and powdered bloodstone.” Mag took the parcel and whispered an incantation over it where it lay in the flat of her hand. Like a living thing, the paper unfolded.

  “Stand back, now.” Stepping in front of her sister, Mag applied a light breath to the glinting powder to send sparkling motes streaming into the room. The swirling cloud expanded, spun in place for a few seconds, then arrowed toward the corner of the printing press.

  “Bingo.” It wasn’t quite a cackle, but a delighted laugh all the same. “There’s fresh blood trace on the press. Look.” Pixie dust particles that looked like multicolored firefly lights blinked in a display that would have seemed merry if not for the fact that they indicated someone had bled there.

  After a second, more thorough search turned up no new evidence, Clara pulled Mag out the back exit, diligently locking the door as they went and discussing their theory of the murder.

  “This means anyone who had contact with Marsha last night is a suspect. Except for Leanne, I think. Marsha was taller than her by at least a foot. I can’t see her having the strength to carry all that dead weight. And we hardly know anyone in town, so getting the information ought to be a piece of cake.” Clara rolled her eyes with sorrowful sarcasm.

  “You forget, Clarie, that this isn’t Port Harbor. Around here, you’ll be considered a weirdo if you aren’t a Miss Marple-level busybody. I’m sure we’ll find out more about Marsha than we ever wanted to know over the next few days—probably even weeks—with the vast majority comprised of conjecture and outright lies.”

  With a conspiratorial wink, Mag grabbed Clara’s coffee cup out of the basket she still carried, dumped the dregs down a nearby sewer grate, and headed for the door of Evelyn’s Bakery, “Well, let’s see what we can find out, shall we?”

  It had taken less than an hour for the news of Marsha’s death to reach the insatiable ears of the Harmony public. When anything happens in a small town, all it takes is one fly on the wall to set the rumor mill churning. That one fly whispers softly to her cricket friend, who repeats the information—not, of course, in its entirety—to a little birdie, and on down the grapevine it travels until all the buzzing and chirping is nothing more than background noise.

  Unfortunately, the unlucky SOB occupying the bottom branch of the phone tree is like the last person at the end of a long game of Telephone, and what she hears usually bears little resemblance to the original statement.

  “Looks like we came to the right place. Half the town is crammed in here,” Mag’s eyes lit up as she surveyed the establishment, which could hardly be described as just a bakery.

  The original Evelyn had focused her immeasurable talents on creating the fluffiest, most delicious glazed donuts known to mankind, but her daughter, the current reigning Evelyn, had jumped on board the coffee and cafe train right around the time Harmony had vetoed the addition of a Starbucks. She went from serving just donuts to providing a variety of breakfast items, plus soup and sandwiches at lunchtime.

  “Go find us a seat, if you can. You want your usual?” Clara asked.

  “No, make it Mint Delight today; wintergreen helps me think more clearly,” Mag replied.

  Clara snorted, considered her sister’s request, and ordered one for herself as well.

  “What a shame, she was such a lovely woman.” A customer Clara only vaguely recognized shook her head sadly while waiting for her order.

  Mrs. Green, an elderly neighbor of Mag and Clara’s, clucked in agreement while she poured copious amounts of sugar into her coffee cup, throwing caution and concern for dietary restrictions out along with the paper wrappers, “Maybe it was a blessing, after all, that she never had any children. These young’uns and their need for a career these days, I tell you…”

  Clara exchanged a small smile with Evelyn, who she judged to be about the same age as Marsha—no more than thirty-five if Clara’s instincts were on point—while Mrs. Green launched into a diatribe on her views regarding modern-day women.

  Fortunately, Evelyn understood that the phrase “the customer is always right” often requires a solid metric- ton of patience, and a willingness to part ways with your own opinions once the sign on the door flips to the “open” side.

  By the time she made it to the table where Mag huddled, Clara had heard the name Marsha whispered in reverent tones at least three times.

  “They barely moved the body yet, and already everyone in town knows what happened.” Clara’s statement held no measure of surprise; it was to be expected.

  Mag examined the faces in the shop, thinking. “Yes, and the display of false sympathy is positively shameful. Nobody is universally loved, especially not someone like Marsha.”

  “What do you mean?” Clara aimed a quizzically raised eyebrow at her sister.

  “She wasn’t a pushover, that’s what I mean.”

  “You got that out of watching her in action for half an hour?”

  “Sure did. The woman had a spine. Didn’t you see that? Strong women are never popular—powerful, yes, but they’re not always well liked. Could be what got her killed.”

  “Shh, Mag, or you’ll whip the whole town into a frenzy.” Clara admonished as her sister’s voice steadily increased in volume. “Let’s go, we’re not going to find out anything useful right now. Not until the shock dissipates and people stop eulogizing her.”

  On their way out the door, Clara tripped over the threshold and nearly did Hagatha’s job for her as instinct and self-preservation had her conjuring a spell to keep herself from nosediving into the sidewalk. Thankfully, steady arms caught her mid-fall, and when she had been put to rights, Clara found herself looking into the speculative eyes of Bryer Mack.

  “Whoa there,” He smiled, his voice taking on a husky quality that made Clara’s cheeks redden for the second time that day. “Are you okay?”

  Bryer’s hands were still around her waist, and the scent of his cologne surrounded her like a cloud. Clara disentangled herself with an awkward shake that did more to intrigue than repel him.

  “I’m fine. Thank you,” she said, running a hand down her front to straighten her clothing.

  “I hear you had quite the shock this morning.” Bryer’s voice held concern and something else—curiosity if Clara wasn’t mistaken. Even the men in this town are insatiable gossipmongers. She thought uncharitably.

  “Yes, we certainly did. Such a tragedy.” She mimicked the sentiments circling Evelyn’s Bakery. “You were her friend, weren’t you? I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Bryer’s face clouded. “It’s a tragedy, yes. But I wouldn’t call us friends, exactly. We had a professional relationship, but Marsha wasn’t close to many people in town, except for Leanne. Not that you’d be able to tell, the way they bickered. Then again, Marsha bickered with just about everyone.”

  “I’m surprised to hear that. I thought Marsha seemed quite pleasant, and everyone we’ve talked to this morning has had nothing but nice things to say about her.”

  “Well, of course, they do. Now.” Bryer seemed to agree with Mag’s earlier sentiment about glorifying the dead. She inclined her head to indicate Clara should keep him talking.

  Clara batted her eyelashes just enough to draw Bryer’s attention and murmured a breathy, “How interesting,” before lowering her lashes shamefully. “Oh, you must think I’m ju
st the Nosiest Nelly in town.”

  Bryer seemed to buy her false remorse, hook, line, and sinker. “Not at all. It’s only natural. Just ask Perry Weatherall how much of a thorn in the side Marsha could be. Not that I think he’ll be happy to learn of her…um…accident. But those two went round and round over the lease agreement for the newspaper office, and he made no bones about his feelings toward Marsha. Personally, I thought she did a bang-up job at the paper, and for that, she’ll most definitely be missed.”

  “Why would Perry Weatherall have a say in Marsha’s lease agreement?”

  “Oh, Mr. Moneybags bought the entire building, so now he owns roughly a quarter of the town’s real estate. I can’t complain; he cares about local business, and his dealings have netted me a tidy profit.”

  Clara, realizing the conversation was coming to a close, gave Bryer an easy out. “Yes, well, so it seems. It was nice to see you. Thanks again for saving me.”

  “It was my pleasure. You and your mother have a lovely day.”

  It was all Clara could do to keep a straight face at Mag’s barely-contained scowl. “Yes, you too.”

  “Are you wearing beer-scented perfume today or something?” Mag asked once Bryer had ambled back down Main Street.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know good and well what I’m referring to. That’s the second man you’ve had at your disposal in as many hours.” Mag’s tone was light and teasing, but deep down the little green monster stirred. She put on a brave face but underneath the tired old facade lurked a woman who, in witch years, should have been in her prime, and it rankled.

  “He’s too young for me anyway.” Clara rolled her eyes.

  “Clarie, you have two centuries on every man in town whose hormones are still active, so what difference does a couple decades in appearance make?”

  Clara sighed, “I can’t explain it. And besides, I have no interest in dating. Period. I’ve got you and Pyewacket, and that’s all the companionship I’m looking for at the moment.” Her brusque tone brooked no argument and, considering there were more important things to focus on, Mag let the subject drop.