Murder Above the Fold Read online

  “At least we found out one tiny tidbit of useful information. Perry Weatherall had full access, and a key to the crime scene.”

  Chapter Five

  “I don’t know how I let you talk me into spending my twilight years in this backwater place.” Swinging her cane and moving along at a fast clip, Mag spoke over her shoulder and ignored the fact she’d been expounding on the virtues of small-town living, not a day before.

  “Excuse me?” Clara said, brows raised and hands on her hips. “I talked you into moving here? Puh-lease. Let’s move to the country, you said. This coven needs us, you said. We can start over somewhere we can make a difference, you said. How is it my fault the job comes with social obligations? No one’s asking you to actually attend the festivities. In fact, all you really have to do is sit there and try not to look like there’s a burr under your butt. And don’t get me started on the twilight years thing.”

  All teasing aside, Clara considered the perfectly valid reasons her sister preferred avoiding most forms of social interaction. Still, she hoped the decision to move wasn’t going to become an ongoing argument.

  “I’m sorry. Maggie, please.” Catching up, Clara gently pulled Mag to a stop, led her to one of the benches in front of the veterans’ memorial and, checking to make certain no one was around, used a hint of power to drop a sound barrier that would keep their conversation private. “Are you having second thoughts about all of this? About moving here, becoming a shopkeeper, taking part in an active coven after so many solitary years? Or is it that everyone in town thinks you’re my mother?”

  “Don’t be daft. I’m used to my outside not looking like my inside, and I don’t give a damn if people think I use this”—Mag waved the cane she habitually carried—“because I'm old and decrepit. Lulls them into a false sense of security.” The statement was true at least ninety-nine percent of the time.

  Clara stared at her for a few long seconds, trying to determine the truth of the statement. “How’s the leg? You’re doing your exercises and using the cream I made for you, right? Sorry, I didn’t mean to turn into a mother hen.”

  She fell quiet for a few seconds, waiting for Mag to answer. When she didn’t, Clara blurted, “then what is it? Every witch in that coven knows the story of Margaret Balefire, mighty Raythe hunter. They practically hang on your every word.” To her credit, sincerity rang through Clara’s tone; she was proud of her sister. Always had been.

  “I don’t care about me, Clarie. I see how some of them look at you when they think you won’t notice. Like you got away with something.”

  “That? Can you blame them? I was turned to stone, for Hecate’s sake. Harm none, that’s our way. There’s only one immediately punishable offense—witch murdering witch—and one sentence: being turned to stone. I didn’t do the former, but I certainly managed the latter. Never mind that it wasn’t a true stoning, it looked that way from the outside.” She shrugged. “What else would they think when they see me here and in the flesh, so to speak? I was stoned, and now I'm not.”

  “Which you’ve explained, and still they look.” Mag’s vehemence warmed Clara’s heart.

  “People will believe whatever they want to believe, and there’s nothing I can do to change the situation, but I refuse to let anyone’s opinion define me.” She paused for a few heartbeats to watch a couple stroll by, happily engrossed in each other.

  “Let them look,” she continued. “We’re Balefire witches; some of the strongest in our line, and that alone is enough to draw attention. My daughter hooked up with Cupid and gave birth to a powerful Fate Weaver. It just adds to the mystique. Our exploits are legendary. I’ll own that if you will. I choose not to care what they think of me. Or not much anyway. Besides, we’re businesswomen now, and you need to present your best face to the community.”

  Margaret rounded and presented her annoyed face to her sister.

  “Not that one! We don’t want to scare away customers. Word of mouth travels fast in places like this. You don’t want to be known as the new Hagatha, do you? How hard can it be to plan decorations for a dance? I doubt we’ll even be called on to offer an opinion since we’re new in town. Plus, Hagatha is expecting us, and I’d rather not be cursed by the whackadoodle witch of the east for being excessively tardy. We’re already late.”

  “Can’t be any worse than that toilet paper float we’re going to be riding on, and thank you for volunteering me for that duty, by the way.” Arms linked, the sisters strolled toward the meeting room, Mag complaining with every step.

  “It’s not toilet paper, it’s tissue paper. There’s a difference.”

  “Not much of one.”

  Clara was spared any more discussion on the matter when they reached their destination. She paused just inside the door as Hagatha’s rusty voice soared above the din.

  Leaning toward Mag’s ear, Clara announced, “Not it,” then made a beeline for the end of the hall farthest away from where Hagatha held court, leaving her glowering sister to handle the elderly witch alone.

  Did she feel the tiniest bit remorseful about deserting Mag that way? No, Clara decided she did not.

  Minding just about the oldest witch on the planet was hard enough, but when said witch had decided the world was ready to know about magic and had recently mounted a one-woman crusade to drag her kind out of the closet, the job turned into a nightmare.

  “Did you hear the news?” Gertrude, bedecked in red and green stripes from head to toe, sidled up and whispered in Clara’s direction. “That nice woman from the newspaper was found dead yesterday. Marsha Something-or-other. What a shame.” Some members of the witch community maintained a healthy distance from the rest of the town. “Word is they’ve closed up the office, and there won’t be a paper at all for the foreseeable future.”

  “How well did you know her?” Might as well take advantage of the opportunity to learn more about Marsha, Clara thought. Funny how no one seemed to know the Balefire women had found the body. News like that should have gone around town faster than a racehorse could run.

  “Oh, I only met her once or twice. Safer to stay away from people who ask questions, you know, when you have secrets to protect. It takes a prying mind to run a newspaper. She came around to do interviews with the group a time or two. Once when we were running a function. Quite nosy with all her questions, she was. But nice. I don’t want you to think I’m speaking ill of the dead.”

  “Did she have family in the area? Was she married?”

  “No. No family—or none that I know of since her granddaddy passed away. The family wasn’t from around here, to begin with. Can’t say I know what happened to her folks, but she was just a babe when the old man moved to town. She grew up, moved away like most of the younger generation does. Why I think she only came back to run the paper about ten years ago. They were newcomers, you see. So I don’t know much about the family.”

  Typical New England mindset. Anyone who didn’t come over on a ship named for a Spanish woman or a spring bloom earned the newcomer designation, and as such, landed on a watch list. Of course, Gertrude was a five-hundred-year-old witch. To her, anything under a century would seem like a short time indeed.

  “The police ruled it an accident, but people are saying she might have jumped.” Gertrude’s voice dropped to a whisper. “On purpose.”

  “Why? Is there a reason she might want to kill herself?”

  Gertrude shrugged. “All I know is there’s talk. And, in this town, where there’s talk, it’s because someone has a story they don’t want to tell, so they let it out in rumors. Some say it was financial trouble, some say she was sick or something.”

  “She looked perfectly healthy to me, but you never know nowadays.” Clara quickly rejected the idea, her intuition screaming that if Marsha had intentionally ended her life, she’d have made preparations or at least left a suicide note.

  “I heard Perry Weatherall tossed her off the bridge so he could break the lease on her office space, but that’
s just ridiculous,” Gertrude continued. “I’d bet it was an affair gone wrong. She was a looker, so that’s the most likely reason. Tragic, really. I wonder who it was. There aren’t too many eligible men of an age around here.”

  Clara couldn’t swear to it, but she thought Gertrude seemed a little disappointed by that particular sentiment.

  “There’s Harold Fishman what owns the grocery store, but last I heard, he was stepping out with Sheila Matson. Besides, he’s kind of a damp squib between the sheets. I can’t see anyone getting riled up enough to commit suicide over him. Never saw her look twice at Norm McCreery, and I know for sure it wasn’t Perry Weatherall. The whole town knows those two hated each other. Maybe she was catting around with a married man. That makes more sense.”

  It was all Clara could do to stop her mouth from dropping open in shock while she listened to Gertrude go from speculation to certainty that Marsha brought about her own demise after being overcome with grief at the ending of a clandestine relationship.

  Character assassination, pure and simple, Clara thought to herself. And not a word of it factual given what she and Mag had learned of the crime. Even without confirmation, her sister had recognized it for murder and Clara would put Mag’s gut feelings up against Sherlock Holmes’s powers of deduction any day of the week.

  Poor Marsha. Posthumously condemned to knowing winks and the product of sly, wagging tongues, and all the while, no one would know she was the victim of a brutal murder. The injustice of it burned a hole nearly through Clara. No one should have to die and then be painted with the brush of scandal. As suddenly as it began, the burn in her gut turned to cold determination.

  For twenty-five long years, Clara had stood frozen in stone while members of her coven came to confess their sins at the feet of the one witch they knew had done something much worse. All that time, the Balefire name was dragged through the mud over a crime she didn’t commit. Marsha being condemned through gossip brought back many of the emotions Clara recognized from her own ordeal.

  Hot blood rose up to prickle across her skin, pushing her to act because Marsha’s death must be avenged. The poor woman’s name must be cleared, and the culprit must not escape punishment. Was this how Mag had felt during her hunting days? No wonder she’d continued and not counted the cost of her thirst for justice.

  On the other side of the room, Mag needed no urging to come to a similar conclusion. Murderers or rogue magical beings—it all amounted to the same. Harm an innocent, and you’d have Margaret Balefire to deal with.

  The decision was cemented when she listened to one coven member say to another, “You heard about the scandal in New York, right? Cost her that fancy job, and it’s the only reason she ended up back here in the first place. Now, this? You just never know about people, do you?”

  Whispered innuendo carried the day and turned Mag’s face sour with displeasure. Towing Hagatha along for the ride, she made her way back to Clara’s side, but before the sisters had a chance to compare notes, Penelope Starr shot her nose in the air and lifted her voice to be heard.

  “Ladies!” She clapped her hands. “If you please, it’s time to start waving your wands. We need three hundred flowers finished by the time the men show up and we’re down to half an hour before that happens.”

  Sharing the space with “normals” meant a fair amount of caution must be exercised to keep the coven’s witchy ways a secret.

  “This town event coincides with the Wind Moon celebration, so let’s all remember to incorporate the proper elements into your decorations. You do know what you’re doing, right?” Penelope Starr, Hagatha’s self-appointed successor as high priestess (only because Gertrude herself had vehemently refused the title), hadn’t the grace to wait until the post was available before she considered it filled. Maybe she assumed her position as head of the Moonstones made her uniquely qualified.

  In her capacity as Circle leader, Penelope surveyed the room from the head of the table where she leaned forward on her palms and pressed her forearms together in an attempt to rival Gertrude’s considerable bosom. When her eye landed on Mag’s mutinous expression, one eyebrow lifted and her mouth curved into a smirk.

  Once past their twenty-fifth birthday, witches enjoyed the benefits of decelerated aging and a greatly expanded lifespan—Clara and Mag were still considered relatively youthful after clocking in over two and a half centuries, even if Clara was the only one of the two who exemplified the phenomenon.

  A goodly chunk of Mag’s youthful appearance had been siphoned off by the Raythes she’d battled selflessly. Her aged countenance was a mark of great sacrifice—one Penelope refused to acknowledge with proper reverence and respect. She had already made her feelings about the coven’s new additions perfectly clear.

  Penelope considered the Balefire sisters an unnecessary addition to the coven, and she would have kicked Hagatha out on her wrinkled butt years ago if she wasn’t petrified of the karmic kickback. If she had a lick of sense, Penelope would have been more worried about the wrath of Hagatha than by knowing whatever magic she sent out into the world would come back to her times three. Hagatha didn’t need the multiplication factor; she could take Penelope out in one fell swoop.

  Then again, maybe Penelope figured she could toss one of her two henchwomen in front of her as a shield. Neither Mabel Youngblood nor Evanora Dupree was bright enough to avoid the karma bus before it ran them over.

  Mag couldn’t stand any one of the trio, referring to them as the “witchy bitches,” and Clara found their apparent fixation with attempting to live reality television lifestyles a bit too juvenile for her tastes. The Real Witches of Harmony did NOT have a nice ring to it.

  Still, the Circle was a mid-level contributor to half a dozen local charities, and the sharing of a mutual goal had only strengthened the camaraderie of the Harmony coven. Penelope and her minions must have had some redeeming qualities if they could run the Moonstones from inside the coven without getting too far on Hagatha’s bad side while keeping the organization’s true purpose hidden from the regular humans who made up the majority of the town population. At least, Clara hoped they did. Otherwise, her new lifestyle would get tedious in no time flat.

  In response to Penelope’s demand, Mag whipped out her wand and flicked it in the general direction of the table. With a stoic face below a single raised eyebrow, she rained a waterfall of tissue-paper flowers over its surface before turning on her heel and returning to the kitchen with a spring in her wobbly step.

  “Well, that’s more like it.” Penelope grudgingly admitted.

  Left standing next to Clara, Hagatha chortled and muttered under her breath, “Gonna be a party no one will ever forget.” Her posture seemed more hunched than usual, and Clara thought the old witch had something cradled under the argyle-patterned cardigan hanging off her frail shoulders.

  “Are you planning something, old mother?” A term of respect between witches.

  “No more than usual. Just trying to do something nice for the town. Make the celebration special.” Clara wasn’t buying Hagatha’s innocent facade, but with no evidence of wrongdoing, pursuing the matter wouldn’t be that far off from sniffing around the lid of Pandora’s box.

  On impulse, she turned to Hagatha and asked, “Do you know anything about the death of the newspaper editor?”

  “Been listening to gossip, have you? I know she didn’t kill herself and she wasn’t having an affair with a married man.”

  “I didn’t think so.” But Clara found herself talking to thin air. Hagatha had left the building.

  Dragging Mag into a dark corner, Clara followed suit, magically reappearing inside the empty Balms and Bygones.

  “We’re not supposed to skim from the center, and you know it.” Mag grinned.

  “No one was looking, and I’d had enough of the place to last me a week. Did you hear some of the things Gertrude said about Marsha? The poor woman is lying cold on a slab in the morgue, and they’re gossiping about her.”
/>   “Did you think human nature had changed all that much while you were out of commission? I’m here to tell you it hasn’t. If anything, it’s worse. I remember when—”

  Clara waved her off. “Don’t let’s get started on a discussion of the good old days. The only reason there was less gossip when we were young is because there were fewer people, and they weren’t connected by phone lines. But people have always been titillated by scandal, so I suppose I should have seen it coming.”

  Free to work magic in her own home, Clara concentrated for a second and changed her outfit for something comfier. At the flick of her fingers, a tea cart rolled in from the kitchen, steam from the antique floral pot wafting along in its wake.

  “That looks like the Windsor that came in on my last shipment. Did you lift it from the inventory?”

  “Considering your last shipment came in from the family section of Shadow Hold—“the hidden archive where witches banished unwanted things or items too powerful to be loose in the world—“it’s as much mine as it is yours, and you never asked if I wanted to sell it.”

  Her shrug acknowledging both statements as truth, Mag let it go, accepting the proffered tea and a delicate pink macaroon.

  “No one else is looking, you know,” Clara said.

  “Fine, then I’ll take two.” Another of the airy treats landed on Mag’s plate.

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant for Marsha’s killer. The police have already ruled it an accidental death.”

  “That might be my fault.” From her pocket, Mag pulled a scrap of paisley cloth. “I forgot to put this back, and it was the only clue.”

  “What about the blood on the printing press? Wouldn’t that have shown up if they’d gone looking for it?”

  Mag had the grace to seem chagrined. “It would have if I hadn’t used the pixie dust on it.”

  “You tampered with evidence?”

  “Just a little bit.”