Be Careful What You Witch For (A Family Fortune Mystery) (2 page)

2

Muffled sniffles and sobs punctuated the otherwise quiet clearing. We’d known he was dead a few minutes after CPR had started. Fortunately, one of the group members, a nurse, took over the evaluation and finally made the decision to stop CPR. Visibly shaken, he sat with his back against a nearby tree, head in hands, while the rest of us held vigil and waited for the paramedics to arrive.

Diana sat next to Rafe on the ground and seemed to be in a trance. Her hood lay flat on her back, her orange curls reflecting the glow of the bonfire. I knelt next to her, murmuring reassuring platitudes and feeling helpless. I knew how close Rafe and Diana had been.

Vi stood nearby. Her eyes glittered in the flickering light and the shadows accentuated the furrows and creases on her face.

The wail of a siren intruded on our stunned group and then we heard the EMTs crashing through the trees.

Two men burst into the clearing. One looked about fifty, red faced and breathing heavily from the sprint through the woods. The other could have kept running all the way into Crystal Haven. Surely just out of his teens, he’d need to show ID every time he bought a beer. They quickly assessed the mood of the crowd and let their equipment slump to the ground. After verifying that Rafe was dead they moved the stretcher toward Rafe’s body to carry him out of the woods. Diana looked confused at their approach and leaned over as if to protect him from attack.

“Diana, he’s gone,” I said. I touched her shoulder.

She looked at me with wet eyes.

“But I gave him the epinephrine. Why didn’t it work?”

I shook my head and helped her stand so the EMTs could do their work.

“Let them get him to the hospital,” I said.

“Is there any next of kin?” the older man asked as he scanned the crowd. I saw his eyes grow wide as he took in the cloaks and hoods, the cauldron and altar.

Several people shook their heads, and turned to Diana.

“No, I’m the closest thing he’s got to family.” Her voice broke, and she rubbed her eyes with her sleeve. Rafe Godwin was Diana’s father’s oldest friend. He’d been like an uncle to her and her brother growing up, and a source of support after their parents died.

The younger EMT had shuffled closer to his partner and scanned the crowd as if he were a rabbit who had stumbled into a fox den.

“What’s going on here?” the older one asked.

“It’s part of the Fall Fun Fest,” I said. I stuck out my hand. “I’m Clyde Fortune, and this is one of the scheduled activities.”

He took my hand in a warm grip. They both relaxed at this—festivalgoers were apparently less threatening than free-range witches.

After they lifted Rafe onto the stretcher, a couple of the men in the group stepped forward to help carry it. We filed out of the clearing after them, making a procession of dark-robed figures through the woods.

3

The next day, the crisp, clear November air held just a threat of the winter to come. It brought back my best memories of growing up in Western Michigan, spending time in the woods, and it was a welcomed feeling after experiencing last night’s tragedy there. I closed my eyes to let the sweet, sharp smell of the fallen leaves block out all other sensations. The midnight ceremony was meant to kick off the weekend Fall Fun Fest. So far, the great weather and promise of good food had overshadowed the pall of a death in the woods. I was helping Diana at her vendor’s stall, which was doing a brisk business selling everything from herbs to jewelry. When I’d driven her home the night before, I’d offered to cover for her that morning, but she’d insisted she would feel better if she stayed busy. As the organizer of the Fall Fun Fest, she said she would go crazy sitting at home wondering if there was anything she should be doing. I’d learned over the years that arguing with Diana when her mind was set led nowhere.

Diana owned Moonward Magick, the busiest Wiccan supply store in the area. She had also worked from mid-August to set up the Fall Fun Fest. In past years it had been held in Grand Rapids but the organizer was getting older and had health issues. Diana had been talked into running it this year and decided to move it to Greer’s Woods outside of Crystal Haven. I wondered if this would be her first and last time organizing it. Based on the muttering and swearing that had occurred since early September, I was glad she didn’t believe in curses.

Everyone was talking about the sudden death at the ceremony. The stories I overheard in the crowd varied widely, from seizure, to heart attack, to spirit possession. The one thing they all agreed on was that Rafe and Diana had always been close, and that she had tried to save him. I saw that she was wearing her mother’s rose quartz pendant. She only wore it when she was stressed or upset, but her warm and caring manner with her customers gave no indication of her feelings.

She refused all questions about the death, and would not engage in any conversation that wasn’t directly related to her business or the festival. She was a master at putting off an emotional outburst until the appropriate time, unlike me.
I
was a master at putting off emotional outbursts forever. I could tell it was depleting her energy.

“What’s good around this place?” I stiffened as a familiar voice floated through the crowd.

Before I could duck behind the display board, Aunt Vi and my mom approached the table.

“Clyde, there you are!” my mom said in a tone that suggested she’d trekked the Himalayas for a week to find me.

The sisters were almost the same height, both with silver hair. Vi had hers in its familiar braid, and she wore a multicolored skirt with two cardigans and a shawl. Mom had her hair in a bun, as usual, and wore a light blue tracksuit and sneakers. This was her venturing-into-the-woods outfit.

“I knew it! I knew all that Halloween chanting and fire gazing would lead to trouble.” Vi fixed me with her fierce black eyes. I refrained from reminding her that she’d insisted on being there.

Vi, a pet psychic, and Mom, a tarot reader, had been unpleasantly surprised to learn a Wiccan ceremony would be part of this year’s Fall Fun Fest offerings. Mom held a long-standing wariness of spells and potions. Vi approached the Wiccans as an entertaining subculture, but one not to be entirely trusted.

I sliced across my neck with my hand and jerked my head in Diana’s direction.

Violet had taken a breath to begin her inquisition when she noticed my not-so-subtle maneuvers. The sisters glanced in Diana’s direction and fell silent. Violet did something gymnastic with her eyebrows but I gave up trying to figure it out. My aunt and mother truly did communicate with glances and nods, a skill I had not developed, at least not with them.

I walked away from the booth and they followed. Once out of earshot, we began rapid-fire whispering, sounding like angry geese.

“What are you two doing here?”

“We came to support Diana in her . . . endeavors.” My mother clutched her amethyst amulet for protection. “Vi told me about what happened last night.”

“It’s all anyone in town will talk about,” Vi said. “Witches in the woods, rituals,
death
. Hey, I heard there was good food here. Where’s the giant turkey legs?” Vi stood on her tiptoes.

“I think you have this confused with a Renaissance fair. There aren’t any turkey legs here.”

“Oh. No swords or jousting?”

I shook my head.

Violet dropped her heels and the corners of her mouth at the same time.

“Do you know any more about what happened?” Mom glanced in Diana’s direction and lowered her voice. “To Rafe?”

I assured them I had no information. My status as a former police officer led them to believe I had an inside track on such things. Last spring, after shooting a suspect while working as a police officer in Ann Arbor, I had come home to recoup and think about what to do next. I had had very little time for either when Crystal Haven had its first homicide in decades. One murder led to another and by the time the crime was solved, I found myself with a small inherited house and a large inherited bullmastiff. Now that I had my own place, the ladies in the family had taken to semi-stalking me, a side effect I hadn’t considered when I decided to stay in Crystal Haven and leave police work behind.

I described the death of Rafe Godwin to Mom with minimal detail. She walked back to the booth and embraced Diana, both of them welling up and sniffling. In spite of her feelings toward Wiccans in general, mom loved Diana.

Violet and I stood with our arms crossed, shaking our heads.

“Diana, I’m so sorry. That must have been so horrible for you after losing your parents. Now you’ve lost Rafe as well,” Mom said.

“I never liked that Rafe Godwin,” Vi mumbled out of the side of her mouth.

“What are you talking about?” I said. “Everyone liked him. He led a very popular coven in Grand Rapids, did charity work, and was a huge support to Diana and Dylan.”

“No, not everyone.” She shook her head. “The cats don’t trust him. They say he’s not as nice as he seems and
they
would know. They’re very good judges of character.” Vi nodded once to punctuate.

Slow deep breath.
It was my own fault for thinking Vi would have real information about anyone. Her pet psychic abilities were highly exaggerated in my opinion, but she and my mother took it very seriously.

“Okay, well, he’s dead now so the cats don’t have to worry,” I said and turned back to the booth.

“What’s
he
doing here?” Vi said. I turned to follow her gaze.

Tom Andrews made his way through the crowd. He’d worked at his mother’s booth over the weekend helping to sell her healing herbs and potions. Tom was wearing his police uniform so I assumed he must be working at his day job.

He spotted Diana and Mom and turned in the direction of the booth. At the same time, he tripped over someone’s dragging robe, grabbed a passing woman for support who shrieked and stepped away, which caused the group to scatter around him like an exploding firework. He righted himself and took the last two stumbling steps to Diana’s table and clutched it to keep from falling down. Diana had already rushed to help if he fell and I could still hear the crashes and grunts of the masses as the waves of Tom’s klutziness spread.

As usual, Tom was unaware of the chaos in his wake and struck a pose of calm authority.

“Diana Moonward?” he said.

She cocked her head at him as if maybe he’d sustained a brain injury on his way through the fair.

“You know I am. What’s up, Tom?”

He dropped his officer stance and lowered his voice. “I have to take you in to the station for questioning—I’m really sorry.”

“What! I knew it!” Vi rushed to his side. “I knew Rafe Godwin was murdered!”

Tom turned to Aunt Vi. “How did you . . .”

Diana gasped and the blood drained from her face. Mom squeezed her amulet in her fist and stepped closer to Diana.

“So Vi’s right? He was murdered?” Mom asked.

Tom looked from my aunt to my mother and then shot a pleading glance in my direction.

“I can’t say anything. I just need to ask Diana some questions.”

“Well, we’re going with her!” Vi crossed her arms and stepped between Tom and Diana’s table.

“No,
I’ll
go with her,” I said. “Diana, text Bethany to come early for her shift and Vi and my mom can cover your table until she gets here.”

Diana fumbled in her pocket for her phone and handed it to me with a shaky hand.

“We can’t do that, Clyde. We don’t know anything about this . . . merchandise.” Mom swept her arm over the table, and shook her head.

“We can do it, Rose. Selling is selling, right? We can always tell the customers to come back in an hour if we can’t answer their questions.” Vi was already rolling up her sleeves and rearranging the table.

“Well, okay. Thanks.” Diana stepped from behind the table and grabbed my hand.

“I’ll drive her and we’ll meet you there, Tom,” I said. “You aren’t arresting her are you?” Diana squeezed my hand, hard.

“No. I’ll explain when we get there.” He glanced at the small gang that had gathered at Diana’s table. “Nothing to see here, folks. Go about your business.” He pushed his way through the throng, which gave him a wide berth, and we followed.