Murder on the Backswing Page 8

  All Mag had to do was cast a narrow-eyed sidelong glance at Jinx, who swallowed his protests while focusing on the prospect of fresh fish and a chance to practice more spellwork. She beckoned Clara to the back room, then pulled a Harmony town map and a pendulum from a supply drawer and prepared to scry.

  “Like to see you use that GSP app thing for this,” she crowed.

  “GPS.” Clara corrected, then flicked a finger and the cloth covering the round table whisked into the air to reveal a pentacle etched into the surface. Inlaid with Living Gold, a material forged by the gods, the five-pointed star would act as a magical conduit.

  She placed a white candle at each spot where the surrounding circle intersected with the star’s points, lighting each one while calling on the elements of earth, air, fire, water, and spirit.

  When the air began to vibrate with magical energy, Mag placed the map in the center of the pentacle, dangling the pendulum over it by the tip of its silver chain.

  “Show me the location of Miriam May.” At Mag’s command, the rose-quartz crystal spun around, its point finally touching down on the spot where the country club was located.

  “She’s at Rolling Hills,” Mag said, her eyes gleaming. “How convenient is that? Returning to the scene of the crime. What do you say, Clarie? I think we should take the chance on a skim.”

  Clara agreed driving the bus would take too much time, and agreed to use the witchy ability to teleport from place to place instead. “We can land in the woods behind the clubhouse. Let’s go.”

  In the blink of an eye, Pye and Jinx were left alone in the shop, while their masters appeared out of thin air beneath the cover of a thick section of pines.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Oomph! What happened?” Clara gasped with what was left of her breath. Flat on her back after a rare tuck-and-roll landing, she blinked up at the sky. “That cloud looks like a narwhal if you squint a little.”

  “Did you hit your head?” Using her cane for balance, Mag struggled to her feet. “Sorry about the rough touchdown. Minor miscalculation on my part.”

  So rarely did Mag misjudge a landing, Clara didn’t have the heart to tease. Much. “I’m fine,” she said. “What did you do? Jig sideways to avoid a moose?”

  “This close to the club? Hardly. I didn’t remember this hill being quite so steep, and I lost my footing when we touched down.”

  “The leg?” Concern replaced levity when Clara tried to lift her sister’s skirts to check.

  “Get off me, Clara. I mean it. I’m fine. Now let’s get this done.” Dusting herself off, Mag took off down the hill.

  “You’re going the wrong way.” Clara, phone in hand and keyed up to the GPS app, called out.

  Reversing, Mag shot her nose in the air and marched past her sister in as fine a huff as Clara had ever seen. According to the club’s website, Wednesdays were reserved for poolside classes, and that gave Clara an idea.

  “Limp a little harder,” she suggested when she caught up with Mag at the edge of the last strand of trees and stepped onto the trimmed grass bordering the fairway.

  “Excuse me?” Mag looked ready to throw down on the spot if she even suspected Clara meant to insult.

  “I mean, make like you need that cane even more than you do already because we’re enrolling you in water aerobics with the cover that it’s part of your physical therapy. Miriam mentioned she takes this class, so I think that’s our best bet.” Clara waited for the inevitable blowup, but it never came. She was beginning to wonder if her sister had mellowed, but decided not to hold her breath.

  “I’m going to need regular therapy after spending an afternoon as a water ballerina, but if it helps us catch a murderer, I suppose it’s a small price to pay.”

  “That’s the spirit. Now hustle. It starts in five.” Clara started for the spa and had taken a handful of steps before she realized Mag wasn’t on her heels.

  Instead, she’d slid behind the wheel of a golf cart conveniently abandoned alongside a nearby maintenance shed and was now cocking an eyebrow at Clara, who rolled her eyes and climbed into what she hoped wasn’t going to turn into a death machine.

  Pedal to the metal, they rolled into the club parking lot in under ninety seconds. “Thanks for the hairstyle, Maggie. I look like the bride of Frankenstein.”

  Getting around the front desk attendant required a white lie and a whiff of magic to reactivate their guest credentials. If Clara felt a hint of remorse for contravening her coven’s magical lockdown decree, she pushed it down deep. It was already too late for that, and if bringing a killer to justice required breaking rules that never should have been made in the first place, who were they hurting?

  With a clear conscience, she weaved through the maze of hallways to the pool-adjacent ladies’ locker room and realized they were in danger of being late after all.

  Popping into the privacy of adjoining stalls, the Balefire sisters threw caution down the toilet and magicked themselves into bathing attire. Clara sported a black-and-white polka-dotted maillot that made her look like a brunette Veronica Lake, while Mag conjured some striped relic from the turn of the century that resembled a potato sack with straps.

  “You cannot go in there wearing that.” Clara took a surreptitious look around and then transformed her sister’s outfit into something country-club worthy, if not entirely fashionable. “There, let’s go. Thank the Goddess none of the coven members are here right now. We’ve broken the no magic in public rule about a half-dozen times already today.”

  “I refute that rule,” Mag scowled but followed Clara to the pool. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” She picked at the rear of her suit, pulling it into a more comfortable position. “My lady parts are—”

  Clara pinched the bridge of her nose. “I beg of you, do not finish that sentence. Now, get in the water and aerobicize yourself or whatever.” Clara sniffed at the sharp scent of chlorinated water and spent a passing thought on the way the humidity was going to affect her hair while she scanned the room for her quarry.

  Not only were Lydia Wayland and Miriam May both in attendance, they sported nearly matching swimsuits and were huddled together, giggling like the best of girlfriends.

  With all the tender mercy of a drill sergeant, the instructor divided the class into two groups. Mag landed in the beginner/special needs category while Clara jockeyed for position and congratulated herself for ending up next to Lydia.

  But that was the last bit of joy she experienced as she learned that, in the advanced group, a person could sweat while surrounded by cool water.

  With three feet of water providing plenty of resistance, Clara sidestepped around the perimeter of the designated area with Lydia on one side and Miriam on the other. Her breathing increased to short gasps as the women crowded close and urged her to move faster.

  The one time she chanced a look at Mag, she saw her sister gliding through the exercises with ease. Sometimes life wasn’t fair.

  “Move it or lose it, Balefire.” Barely a whisper over five feet tall, the instructor proved the cliché about dynamite and small packages. Her muscles had muscles on them, Clara thought as she stepped up her pace. All her plans for engaging Lydia and Miriam in conversation flew into the chlorinated mist rising off the surface of the pool.

  “I’m out of shape,” she finally gasped when they stopped moving sideways and started a series of knee lifts. Not the greatest conversation opener, but she went with it.

  “Oh, honey, this is only the warm-up.” Lydia shot Clara an endorphin-laced grin. Madness. “We’re just getting started.”

  “I’m going to die in this pool.” Mag would have to carry on the Balefire name without her.

  “At least it won’t be murder. We’ve had enough of those to last a lifetime.” Lydia turned her attention back to Miriam, leaving Clara to parse her tone for remorseful subtext. Finding none, she back-burnered thoughts of murder and concentrated only on surviving the exercise in water torture. Or water torture of exerc
ise. Either description seemed appropriate.

  When it was over, Mag climbed out of the pool feeling limber and energized while Clara eyed the ladder with dread and wondered if she could lift her leg high enough to step onto the first rung.

  “Get out up here before they get away.” Leaning over the edge, Mag hissed at Clara, looked back over her shoulder, and took matters into her own hands. Moving faster than she had in years, she hit the locker room just in time to see Miriam’s locker door swing wide.

  Hanging from a magnetic hook, Mag spied a set of car keys, fixed the locker number firmly in her mind, and waited for her chance.

  With Lydia trailing behind, Miriam finally hit the showers, leaving Mag to make a choice. Penelope Starr was not the boss of her, and if she pushed the issue, Mag had no problem pushing back. But this was her town now, and she surprised herself with how much she wanted to fit in with the good people of Harmony.

  Mag Balefire, social butterfly. Okay, probably not. But maybe she could handle being a social caterpillar. Maybe.

  Not today, though. Today she would continue her rule-breaking streak because her chance to do otherwise never came. The bright voices of Miriam and Lydia floated down the short hallway, bounced off the walls, and proved there was only time for magic.

  Gathering power from the heat of her blood and the ball of fire in her belly, Mag sent a spear of intention toward the locker.

  The solid weight of the keys slid into her hand just as Clara caught up and Mrs. May rounded the corner dressed in a hot pink towel the size of a bed sheet.

  “Come on,” Mag dragged Clara toward the toilets and into the largest stall, cast a glamour to hide their feet, and whispered, “Fine lot of help you are. Leaving me to do all the work. I snagged these.”

  Flattened palm up, Mag displayed Miriam’s keys. “Shiny, no?”

  The rhinestone-encrusted fob was the size of a golf ball, and if the glitter of fake jewels wasn’t enough to catch the eye, the brightly patterned keys put it over the top. Mag wondered where a person could buy a tie-dyed house key in the shape of a peace sign. She wanted one of those for herself.

  “Miriam’s not going anywhere without these. Now what do we do?”

  Waving her hand to get back into street clothes, Clara said, “We wait and see.”

  Ten minutes stuffed into a bathroom stall together hadn’t been on Clara’s agenda for the day. She loved her sister, but there was such a thing as too much closeness.

  “I swear you have the boniest elbows on the planet,” Clara nudged Mag’s arm away.

  “Well, you’re breathing in my ear. What did you have for breakfast, anyway? Onions on garlic? Ever heard of mouthwash? Or a toothbrush?”

  A furious shoving match ended with Mag’s eye pressed to the crack in the door while Clara sat on the toilet lid and waited for the all-clear.

  “It’s just Lydia and Miriam tearing apart her locker. Let’s go.”

  Clara needed no further urging and vacated the cramped space happily.

  “Is something wrong?” Her cheerful smile was met with the panicked look of one who has a chronic problem misplacing things.

  “I’ve lost my keys.” Miriam fisted her hands on her hips and surveyed the area around her locker.

  “Again,” Lydia supplied helpfully.

  “What do they look like? We’re happy to help you hunt for them.” Sweet and innocent, Mag made the offer and suppressed a smile at Miriam’s toned-down description of her keys.

  “I don’t know what’s come over me lately. It’s been one catastrophe after another. Can you believe I ran my glasses through the laundry? Twice. Wash and dry.” Miriam shook her head and dumped the contents of her gym bag out on the bench to sort through with frustrated motions.

  When the keys didn’t turn up, she whirled and slumped down on top of the messy pile. “We’re thinking of moving. The town of Harmony doesn’t feel like a safe place anymore. Two murders in a row? How does that happen in a place like this?”

  Miriam saved Mag or Clara the trouble of trying to shoehorn their choice of topic into the conversation.

  “Did you know him well? Taylor Dean, I mean.” Going through the motions of continuing the search, Clara angled her body so she could see the look on Miriam’s face when she answered.

  “What? No. I mean, in a town the size of this you know just about everyone well enough to talk about the weather, but he wasn’t what you’d call a friend.”

  If not for the sheaf of photographs proving there was more to it than Miriam let on, Mag might have missed the hint of bitterness running through her tone. Hiding an affair with her best friend’s husband must have increased Miriam’s skills in guarding her emotions.

  What Mag didn’t miss was the look that passed between Lydia and Miriam, and she made a snap decision.

  “Found them.” Faking the find, she dangled the gaudy keys in front of Miriam’s face. Must have slipped into that front pocket and you missed them.” She ignored Mrs. May’s puzzled frown and the fact that she’d watched the woman search those pockets at least twice. “Clarie, we’re going to be late. Shall we?”

  Mag dragged Clara around the corner, pulled out the pop-tab silencing charm she always carried and waited for her sister to do the same. A squeeze activated the charm, and then Mag said, “Wait and listen. My instincts are chattering.”

  Sure enough, the second they thought they were alone, Miriam and Lydia engaged in a whispered conversation.

  “Why did you have to bring him into the conversation? With Taylor dead, all our troubles are over,” Lydia hissed.

  “I know, but he didn’t just keel over from natural causes. Someone killed him. Don’t you know what that means? If anyone found out he’d tried to blackmail me, the cops would haul me in for questioning, and we’d all be in the hot seat.” Even at a whisper, Miriam’s voice was shrill.

  “Well, you didn’t pay the blackmail, and you didn’t kill the man, for Pete’s sake, and we all have iron-clad alibis for the time of the murder,” Lydia said. “Greg isn’t a suspect. Can’t swing a golf club with a broken wrist. Leonard was at work, and our golf instructor already told the cops we were on the driving range the whole time.”

  “I know that, but I’d rather the entire town didn’t learn about our extracurricular activities. Do you think he tried to blackmail someone else and they didn’t want to pay? I mean, if you’d seen the look on his face when I told him I had nothing to hide from my husband and what four consenting adults choose to do in the confines of their own homes wasn’t any of his business … he went from smug to pissed off pretty fast.”

  Lydia shrugged, “I think Leonard put him in his place. Told him he could go right ahead and talk, but if he did, Chief Cobb would find out he’d been stealing packages from the mail truck. That was the end of it.”

  Aha, Mag thought, if Leonard knew about the thefts, maybe there were others. Maybe the killer knew.

  There was a short pause before Miriam replied. “I feel bad I didn’t go to the police anyway. It might have helped them find someone else with a motive for murder. He wasn’t a good person, but does that really mean he deserved to die?”

  Whatever Lydia’s answer might have been, Mag and Clara didn’t get to learn because another group of bathers passed them on their way into the locker room.

  “Well, that was a bust.” Mag declared when they were safely outside. She sounded a little disappointed. “Other than learning a juicy piece of gossip, anyway. Swingers. Right in the town of Harmony.”

  Clara cringed at the visual. “And I’m not sure I’ll ever look at Leonard Wayland the same way again. But I disagree about it being a bust. We just ruled out four people, right? They all had alibis, right?”

  Mag snorted, “Yeah, but that means we’re no closer to finding the real killer. And there’s still one thing bothering me. That confrontation between Taylor and Leonard. He’s a teacher, so what if Taylor threatened to expose their ‘extracurricular activities’ to the entire town?”
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  Now that the coast was clear, the sisters exited the locker room while Mag considered what they’d learned. “It would be a scandal. Possibly a major one, but I can’t see any way around him being in the classroom at the time of the murder.”

  “Personally, I think we’d be better off moving on to Reggie Blackthorne. Do we have any proof of where he went after Taylor called the postmaster to report the damage to the truck?” Playing back over everything they already knew, Clara didn’t think so.

  “No, and I think it bears looking into to see why the cops ruled him out.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Working their way from the spa around to the tennis courts and back to the main office, the sisters could see that Rolling Hills took great care to make their members comfortable while keeping the staff-to-guest ratio at the perfect median level.

  Had they required assistance, there were enough welcoming, khaki-shorted and white polo-clad employees on site to accommodate almost immediately, yet Mag and Clara weren’t inundated with greetings to a point of irritation—a delicate balance many businesses couldn’t seem to find.

  Mag was just about to insist on returning to the bus when she heard the trill of the kind of laugh that comes when someone has just said something mean or scandalous. Turning, she spotted three of the youngest coven members lunching on a dining room-adjacent outside patio. Faces carefully turned and eyes that looked anywhere but at her meant she or Clara had been the butt of the joke.

  “We really should say hello. Double Bubble just spotted us, and it will seem rude if we don’t.”

  Clara’s mouth quirked into a disbelieving grin, “Who now?”

  “Double Bubble. The one who’s always chewing away on a wad of gum.”