A Catered Fourth of July (17 page)

M
arvin and Sean arrived at Juno Grisham's house ten minutes later. The residence straddled the border between the towns of Jericho and Longely, but for practical purposes, the house was listed as belonging in the town of Longely. The house itself, a two-story brick colonial bordered by a white picket fence, would have looked at home in any town square in Vermont or Massachusetts.

Set in a one-quarter acre lot, large shade-bearing trees, mostly oaks, beeches, and maples, surrounded the house. The lawn looked like velvet, which meant it got expensive, professional care. In fact, Sean decided, everything about the house screamed money; not in an unrestrained way, but in a tasteful, buttoned-up, old-school conservative kind of way.

“Nice,” Marvin said appreciatively as he pulled into the driveway.

“Very,” Sean agreed.

“What does the husband do?”

Sean took a last puff of his cigarette. “Libby tells me he's a high-powered exec in one of the pharma companies. I've never met the guy myself.”

“So he makes a lot of money,” Marvin said, looking at the house.

“Well, he doesn't take home a policeman's salary, that's for certain,” Sean replied as he calculated the house's worth.

He was just about to make a comment about what it must cost to keep a place like this running when the door opened and Juno Grisham floated out onto the top step. She was wearing a caftan with some sort of golden thread shot through it. Her hair was piled on top of her head and her wrists and ankles were covered with gold bangles, while her fingers and toes were adorned with a variety of rings. She wasn't wearing shoes.

Sean realized that some of her bracelets had bells on them because she tinkled as she descended the three steps and delicately picked her way through the grass toward Marvin's hearse. She stopped and waited for Marvin and Sean to alight from their ride.

Not typical garb for the wife of a CEO,
Sean thought as he hastily put out his cigarette and got out of the vehicle.

“Cool ride,” Juno said, nodding in the direction of the hearse.

Sean wasn't sure if she was being sarcastic or not so he decided ignore the comment. “Thank you for seeing us.”

She inclined her head graciously. “Anything I can do to help. Anything.” She approached Marvin. A look of concern crossed her face as she gazed into his eyes. “I feel your pain,” she murmured.

“Ah, g-gee, thanks,” Marvin stammered. He didn't know what else to say.

“I feel it in my heart. Right here.” Juno clutched her breasts to illustrate her point.

Marvin opened his mouth and closed it again. Words had failed him. Literally.

“You're the reason I agreed to talk about what happened at the reenactment,” she continued. She closed her eyes for a minute as if the memory was too great for her to bear. “I wasn't going to at first, but then I said to myself, ‘Juno. You must be strong. You must be resolute. Marvin needs you.' ”

“I do?” he squeaked.

“You do.” She looked at him gravely. “That's what brought you here.”

“It is?” Marvin gave Sean a desperate glance.

“I did not know this,” Sean said to Juno. “I thought it was me.”

“You're the instrument,” she replied. Her tone was somber. “I foresaw this visit in my dreams. You may have thought you were coming here to gather information, but your trip has a far deeper meaning.”

Marvin forced a smile. “It does?” he managed to get out. After all, he had to say something.

Juno inclined her head. “Indeed it does.”

Marvin started backing away, but before he'd taken two steps she grabbed his hands in hers and pulled him toward her. “We must have a cleansing ceremony.” She pressed his hands into her breasts.

“No no.” Marvin panicked as he struggled to free his hands from her grasp without appearing rude, but she held fast.

Sean came to Marvin's rescue. He tapped Juno on her shoulder.

Momentarily distracted, she loosened her grip on Marvin's hands a little and Marvin managed to slip away.

“Oh, but we must,” she earnestly told Sean. “It is of paramount importance.” She pointed to Marvin. “He is surrounded by negative energy. Bad things will continue to happen to him if we do not take the matter in hand.”

“Well, that's one of the reasons we're here,” Sean said, hoping to insinuate a note of sanity into the conversation. “We're hoping to stop more bad things from happening. There's been enough already.” Seeing the look on her face, he added, “Perhaps we can work together. You can tell us what you saw and then we can talk about this cleansing ceremony.”

Marvin shot Sean a panicked look, but Sean ignored it. “I-I don't have time,” Marvin stammered.

Juno waved her hand in the air. “Time is a temporal thing. . . .”

“But . . .”

“You do not have to be here if you do not want to,” Juno told him, “even though it would be more effective if you were. The sisters can do the ceremony with or without you. We just have to fix the date of the waxing moon.”

“Oh, that's fine then,” Marvin said quickly. “That's really great. Absolutely great. Fantastic even. It's very nice of you to take the trouble to do this. ” He realized he was starting to babble and shut up.

“Good then,” Juno said. “I will call the sisters.”

Sean stepped into the shade a maple tree was throwing off. Since he'd gotten older, he found he had less tolerance for the heat. “Given that you were at the reenactment, we were hoping you could shed light on what was happening before Jack Devlin's death.”

“Poor Jack,” Juno murmured. “He will be missed.”

“Mostly by the female half of the town,” Marvin cracked.

Sean threw him a dirty look and he shut up.

“I was not really paying attention,” Juno told them as she twirled the rings on her right hand. “I was communing with my sisters in the fairy circle, but perhaps Hilda can tell us something.”

“Excellent,” Sean said with a warning glance, cutting off any further comment Marvin might have been thinking of making. “What made you get Hilda?” Sean asked as Juno led them around the house to the backyard. “A pig is an unusual pet.”

Juno smiled and moved her hands to her sides. “It was fate,” she explained. “I was out at the dog shelter when someone brought Hilda in. Or surrendered her, as they like to say there. When I saw her, I knew we were meant to be.”

“What did your husband say?” Sean was curious. He couldn't imagine what he would have said if Rose had walked through the door carrying a piglet under her arm.

Juno stopped and turned toward Sean. Her features had hardened and she was clutching the edge of her caftan with her right hand. “He lost the right to tell me what to do awhile ago,” she informed in a stony voice.

“I learned that my first year of marriage,” Sean quipped. “That's when Rose and I started getting along.”

Juno's face relaxed a little.

“So I take it he wasn't happy about the pig,” Sean continued.

“He's not happy about a lot of things.” Juno caught herself and changed the subject. “Wicca has taught me that in order to be happy, it is to ourselves that we must look. It is in ourselves that the power resides.”

Marvin jumped back into the conversation. “So Hilda is your familiar?”

“Whatever gave you that idea?” Juno said.

Marvin retreated under her gaze. “I . . . just . . . I . . .” His voice trailed off.

She drew herself up. “I don't have a familiar. You've been watching too much TV.”

“I just thought—” Marvin began, but before he could get very far Juno shook her finger in front of his nose.

“Wicca is an old religion,” she informed him. “One of the oldest, if not
the
oldest. We utilize the principles of the creation. All creatures exist on the same plane. All creatures are made of the same materials. That is the reason I can understand Hilda and she can understand me. We are one.”

“Sorry,” Marvin mumbled, although if you had asked him what he was sorry for, he couldn't have told you.

They had reached the backyard. Most of it consisted of a green rolling lawn that could have doubled as a golf course, as well as several flowerbeds that had been planted to resemble an English garden.

“Nice,” Sean said, taking it in.

“My husband's pride and joy,” Juno replied.

He looked to the left-hand corner where there was a long chain link fence connected to a door that went into the house. Hilda was there waiting for them, her body vibrating with excitement. “He can't be happy about that,” Sean said, pointing to churned up dirt and dandelions growing in the pen.

Juno shrugged. “Weeds are nature's flowers. I believe in giving them a chance and as for the dirt, pigs like to root. It helps them get in touch with their primal nature.”

“I thought they rooted because they liked grubs,” Marvin said.

Juno glared at him.

Again with the glare
, he thought as he endeavored to look contrite and failed. He was hot, tired, and weirded out by Juno. He wished he'd stayed in the hearse like he'd wanted to.

Juno ignored Marvin, walked over to the fence, and unlatched the gate. A minute later, Hilda scooted out of the pen and started running in frantic circles around the backyard.

“Hilda,” Juno called.

The pig ignored her.

“Hilda,” Juno said, raising her voice.

Hilda kept running.

Juno frowned. “I don't understand. Normally, she comes right over.”

“Maybe she doesn't have anything to say,” Marvin suggested.

Juno compressed her lips and folded her arms across her chest.

Looking at her, Sean knew that if he wanted to get any information out of Juno he was going to have go through the pig. That was the game Juno was playing and he didn't see any alternative except to play along. He turned to Marvin and told him to go get the pig. After all, he certainly couldn't.

“Me? Why me?” Marvin pointed to Juno. “It's her pig. She should go get her.”

“That's true,” Juno replied. “But you're the one who wants to speak to her.”

“A valid point,” Sean said.

“We could wait,” Marvin suggested. “She'll get tired soon. How long can she do this?”

“A long time,” Juno said. “And I have to leave in half an hour.”

Since Marvin couldn't think of a good answer to that, he reluctantly started after the pig. “Hilda,” he cooed. “Good Hilda. Nice Hilda.”

The pig stopped, cocked her head, and listened. Marvin, taking heart, slowly approached her. Hilda waited until he was a foot away and took off again.

He took a deep breath to keep himself from uttering some very impolite phrases and tried again. “Pretty Hilda,” he cooed. “Cute Hilda.”

Hilda sat down and waited. She allowed Marvin to get within six inches of her before she bolted. Sensing what she was about to do, he took a flying leap. Hilda slipped away and Marvin landed belly first on the ground.

“Nice try,” Sean shouted, trying not to laugh and not succeeding very well.

Marvin got up and brushed himself off. His knees hurt as did his wrists, which had taken the weight of the fall, but he wasn't about to admit that, especially to Libby's dad.

“Keep going,” Sean called encouragingly. “You almost had her.”

For the next fifteen minutes, Hilda continued her game of chase. By the end, Marvin was so exhausted he could barely walk. He finally collapsed under the shade of a large oak tree, at which point Hilda came over and sat in his lap. She pushed her bristled snout under his hand. He was torn between killing her and petting her so he compromised.

“Bad Hilda,” he said in as stern a voice as he could manage while he scratched her underneath her chin.

She let out a contented oink.

Juno came over. “Poor Hilda,” she cooed as she knelt down beside her. “You must be thirsty.”

“Poor
Hilda!
” Marvin protested indignantly. “What about me?”

“What about you?” She scooped Hilda up in her arms and rubbed her tummy. “Were you scared of the big, bad man?”

“Big, bad man?” Marvin squeaked. “Are you nuts?”

Juno ignored him and continued on. “Do you want to have a talk with Mommy?” she asked Hilda.

Hilda oinked. Twice.

Juno cocked her head to one side. “Really? You don't say? You want to tell Mommy the rest of that in private?”

Marvin would have rolled his eyes if he'd had the energy. He watched her walking away. She had Hilda firmly clasped in her arms. He wanted to go after her, but he couldn't. His legs felt like logs. He didn't think he had the strength to get up. In fact, he didn't think he'd ever felt so tired in his life.

He wondered if he had heat stroke; perhaps he was dehydrated. He should probably go to the hospital and get checked out, but he was too tired to move. He just leaned against the tree trunk, feeling the sweat run down his back, and watched Juno as she stood in the shade of a copper beech, murmuring in Hilda's ear.

After ten minutes, she came back and stopped in front of Sean. “Hilda wants to tell you something,” she said to him in a grave voice. “Something important.”

Sean waited. Nothing.

“Well?”

“She needs a little more time,” Juno said.

After another minute went by, Sean lost his patience. “I bet I know what she wants to tell me. She wants to tell me about Devlin taking your diamond ring and giving it to Monica Lewis.”

Juno's jaw dropped then she got hold of herself. “That old chestnut?” she scoffed. “Who told you that?”

Sean smiled. “It came to me in a dream.”

“It was Monica Lewis, wasn't it?”

“What if it was?”

“She's a pathological liar,” Juno spit out. “You can't believe anything she tells you.”