The Witch and the Dead (23 page)

I'd managed to tease a smile out of her.

It was a start.

The gift, which felt like a frame, had been double-wrapped. I was more careful as I undid the tissue paper protecting the glass. When I saw what Harper had framed, my mouth dropped. “How did you—”

“What is it?” Nick asked, standing up.

The frame had wooden trim, but its center was made up of two panes of glass. Sandwiched between them was a slightly frayed four-leaf clover.

Nick stared. “Is that what I think it is?”

Harper said, “Terry told Ve about seeing you and Nick out here, crawling around, and Ve told Mimi, and Mimi told me. I'd just read about this spell in one of my books, about finding lost objects, so I decided your little clover was a good way to test the spell.” She nodded toward the iron fence that divided our yard from Terry's driveway. “It was snagged in the bushes in Terry's yard.”

I hugged the frame, telling myself not to cry. If
I
started,
Harper
would start. I was afraid that she wouldn't be able to stop, thanks to the emotional roller coaster Marcus had her on. I might have been able to manage to keep my tears in check, but my voice cracked as I said, “I love it so much. And I can't thank you enough.”

“Thank you, Harper,” Nick added.

She stood up. “You're both welcome. That kind of keepsake should be treasured.”

It should be. It
would
be.

Nick set his hands on his hips. “So three hours you let me crawl around?”

She smiled. A real smile. “It was kind of entertaining.” She kissed our cheeks noisily, then strode off across the green.

I watched her go, a smile on my face as I wondered if she knew she'd given me
two
gifts this morning. The clover, of course . . .

But she'd cast a spell to find that clover.

She'd finally used her witchcraft, and knowing so was almost better than the gift of the clover.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that casting that spell wasn't so much a gift for me . . . as for herself.

N
o sooner had Harper left than a new visitor appeared.

I was shocked down to my toes to see Penelope Debrowski lingering at the gate and could only wonder what would have happened if she and Harper had crossed paths.

Immediately I was glad it hadn't happened.

Penelope cleared her throat. “Is now a bad time?”

She wore wide-leg trousers, a floral blouse, and a cropped cardigan. Her hair had been pulled back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. I rather missed her paint-splattered clothes.

“Not at all,” Nick said as she came up the walkway.

“Hello, Darcy.” She eyed my robe and slippers and lifted a judgmental eyebrow. Her attitude seemed to shift depending on which of her personalities was present.

Yesterday, it had been the Colorcrafter. She'd been friendly, relaxed.

Today she was in Lawcrafter mode. Stiff and starched.

It was interesting to watch, especially considering she had lost her powers. I supposed you could take the Craft out of the witch, but not the witch out of the Craft.

“Hi, Penelope.” I picked up my coffee and sipped.

Nick leaned on the stair railing. “Should we go inside?”

Penelope shook her head. “If it's all right with you, I'd rather stay out here. It's such a beautiful day.” She sat next to me on the steps. “Since I'll be locked up soon, I'd like to enjoy it as much as possible.”

Nick said, “What do you mean? Locked up soon?”

“I have a few legal matters to wrap up this afternoon, but I wanted to let you know that I'll be turning myself in by evening.”

“Turning yourself in for what?” I asked, though I had a good idea.

“I know Steve Winstead paid you a visit last night. Marcus told me.” Her voice cracked when she added, “It's long past time the truth comes out. I'm tired of living in fear. I'm just . . . tired. It's my fault Miles Babbage is dead.”

“Does Oliver know you're here?” Nick asked, his voice gentle.

“No.” She watched a leaf fall from the tree in the front yard. “He's against my decision to turn myself in, but I'm done living a lie. I see what these last couple of days have done to Marcus and it makes me sick to my stomach. It should have never gotten to this point.”

Nick said, “Why don't you start at the beginning?”

She picked at her manicure as she said, “Miles and I dated briefly before he dumped me for Dorothy, breaking my heart the first time. It took a little while
to get over him, but soon enough I started dating Oliver and Steve. Oliver because my parents insisted and Steve because he was fun and fed my creative side. But I never forgot about Miles. He was . . .” She shook her head. “I loved him. It's that simple. And that complicated.”

I thought about Miles not knowing how to love and realized the same was true. It was that simple. And that complicated.

Penelope shifted so the sun wasn't in her face and said, “I was at Wickedly Creative the next time I ran into Miles. I remember it so well; it was a Tuesday night that had been so very ordinary until he waltzed in like he hadn't been gone for a year. All it took was one look, and I fell for him all over again.” She glanced between us. “And yes, I know some of that was the amulet, but some of it was just that I found him alluring. He was funny and kind and talented, and he had a wicked sense of humor. We picked up where we left off. The next day, he asked if I wanted to get married. I said yes. We planned to do it that weekend. . . . That's when he confessed about the amulet. And I told him I was a witch. We wanted to start the relationship on a clean slate.”

Missy trotted up the steps and lay down on the porch, her head on her paws. Higgins, I noticed, was rolling in the grass . . . and over the daisies, flattening them.

“How'd he take the news that you were a witch?” I asked.

“Like it was no big deal,” she said. “He said he'd always suspected there was more going on in this village than met the eye.”

I imagined that using enchanted clay had heightened that awareness.

Penelope's voice hitched again as she said, “Then Steve and Miles got into that fight and all hell broke loose. My parents sent me off to Cape Cod.”

“But you came back . . . ,” Nick said.

“Two days later. I snuck out and called Oliver from a pay phone. He came down to the Cape and picked me up. I think the only reason he did was because he wanted to warn me that Miles and Ve had eloped the day before. He was trying to prepare me.”

My coffee had gone cold. I set the mug aside. “How'd he know?”

Seemed I'd heard over and over again the past few days that only a few people had known about the elopement at the time it happened.

“On the day of the elopement, Ve had called him to see if he could work some magic on a Massachusetts marriage license. He refused and tried to talk her out of marrying Miles. She didn't listen and told him that they'd just go up to New Hampshire. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I cried; I wailed. I was in hell. Absolute hell. I ranted and raved about Miles, that amulet, and about how I told Miles I was a witch.”

I could only imagine the shock she had been in.

“When I got back to the village that Saturday afternoon, I called Miles at Ve's house. He agreed to meet me at the bunkhouse that night. When I finally saw him face-to-face, I wanted to know
why
. How could he plan to elope with me one minute, then run off with Ve the next? It had been only a
day
since my parents sent me away that they eloped. A single day.”

My heart hurt for her. She'd honestly loved the man, and he'd just married another woman.

She clasped her hands together. “He tried to tell me that he didn't know what I was talking about. That we hadn't had any plans to marry and that he was sorry I was upset but he'd married Ve, and he wasn't going to break that vow, even though he did have feelings for me. I was so angry I couldn't even see straight,” Penelope said, her cheeks flushing at the memory. “His ceramics tools were on the table, and I grabbed his
sculpting knife and went after him. I slashed him a few times. When he jumped back from me, he lost his balance and fell, hitting his head on the coffee table. There was blood everywhere.”

The mental image I conjured made me queasy. Queasier, I should say, because my stomach had already started to churn. All I could think about was what my mother had told me this morning. . . . About how Miles Babbage had been memory-cleansed after Penelope was sent away.

He'd been telling Penelope the truth that night—he had no memory of asking her to marry him.

It had been wiped out by magic.

I wasn't sure whether that knowledge would help her or hurt her more at this point, so I kept quiet for now. I'd seek the counsel of my mother on the matter.

Penelope went on, her voice dropping to a whisper. “He was alive when I left, still pleading his innocence.” She blinked away tears. “With the way he was bleeding, I should have called for help.”

Nick ran a hand through his hair, and then said, “I don't quite understand. If Miles was alive when you left, why do you think you were responsible for his death?”

I glanced at Nick, and his gaze met mine. We knew that Miles had died from strangulation, but did Penelope?

She glanced upward at the clear sky, then back down. “I didn't think so, not for many years. Not until I learned his skeleton had been found in Ve's garage. Until then, I simply believed that he had left town like he always did. That maybe he felt some remorse for what he did to me and had decided never to come back to the village ever again. Looking back, I believed it because I wanted to believe it. It was easier than believing he'd used me.”

“But now?” I asked. “What do you think happened?”

She started wringing her hands, and then stopped and clasped them tightly. “I can only surmise that he'd bled to death the night I attacked him.”

This still wasn't making sense to me. “But you never saw him again after you ran out of the bunkhouse, right?”

She nodded. “That's correct.”

Nick said, “That doesn't explain how Miles ended up in Ve's garage.”

Her eyes brimmed with tears. “No, it doesn't.”

I fought the urge to put my arm around her. “How do you think Miles ended up in Ve's garage?”

She swiped tears from the corners of her eyes. “Steve.”

“How so?” I asked.

“He was so worried that night when he saw the blood on my hands, and he pretended to believe what I told him about cutting myself.”

“You knew he was pretending?” I asked.

“Oh, Darcy. It was so obvious I was lying. I took full advantage of how he felt for me.” Her lower lip trembled until she pressed her lips firmly together. “He had to have gone back to the bunkhouse that night to clean up the mess . . . and”—she blinked away tears—“took care of Miles' body.”

“You think Steve found Miles dead in the bunkhouse?” Nick asked. “And hid the body to cover for you?”

“I do,” she said. “It's the only explanation I could come up with over the past couple of days that makes sense. Steve knew my dislike for Ve, and that's probably why he put the . . . body . . . where he did.” She looked at me. “I'm sorry.”

It wasn't me to whom she owed the apology, but Ve. And I suddenly wondered at Penelope's motives for
coming here this morning. Was she here only to drag Steve down with her, since he'd ratted her out? Would she be here at all if he'd kept the secret about her bloodstained hands?

I doubted it.

Birds chirped as I asked, “Did you ever love him? Steve?”

“It's not as easy a question as you think. I hate that I hurt him. I hate it more than I can ever say. He's a good guy. We had fun. At one point I thought we could end up together.”

“But?” I asked, hearing in her voice that there was one.

“But with Steve, it never felt quite right. I always felt as though he loved only the artsy side of me. And though I couldn't Lawcraft very well, it was still inside of me. I liked reading court cases. He didn't understand that. Then Miles happened. He turned my world upside down and inside out. I would have done anything for him. Left my family, walked away from this village.”

Roots,
Steve had said.

“How did you end up with Oliver?” I asked.

Torment filled her eyes. “I was so lost after what happened with Miles. Sick. Ashamed. Brokenhearted. I didn't want to live without him. The next day, I took a bunch of pills. Oliver was the one who found me, got me medical help. When I was better, I told him what happened and that I didn't know if I could go on. He visited me every day. And each day, I looked forward to his visits more and more. Oliver was the only one I could talk to, who knew everything. I realized that anytime I ever needed something, I went to Oliver. If I was sick, it was Oliver bringing me soup. If I had a fight with my parents, he was the one who brokered peace.” She looked at me. “He knew I didn't love him when he asked me to marry him, but he thought it was best to get me
out from under my parents' thumbs. I agreed. I felt like I owed it to him, after all he'd done for me.”

As much as I couldn't imagine marrying someone under those circumstances, I could see why she had agreed to it.

There was still moisture in her eyes when she glanced at me. “About six months after we married, a funny thing happened. I looked at Oliver one day. I mean, truly looked at him, and it hit me like a ton of bricks that he loved me. Truly loved me. Both sides of me. He'd seen it all. I fell hard after that.”

I believed it. I'd seen the way they looked at each other.

“I wish . . . ,” she began.

My nerves danced as I readied to cast a spell.

Then she shook her head. “If only Miles had never come into my life . . .”

A warm breeze blew, loosening more leaves from their branches. They floated peacefully to the ground, and I wondered what would have happened if she'd actually made that wish. How so many lives would have been different.

“I'm sorry to do this, Penelope,” Nick said, “but I just have a couple more questions about what happened with Miles.”

A shudder went through her. “Go ahead.”

“If I have this right, you said you slashed Miles, he fell and hit his head, and that you ran out.”

Her chin lifted. “That's right.”

He nodded. “What did you do with the sculpting knife?”

“I left it on the table with all the other sculpting tools.”

“You used no other weapons?” he asked, fishing. “Another ceramics tool? Your hands, even?”

“No. Just the knife. And those wounds were only
superficial. It had to be the fall that killed him.” She winced. “He probably cracked his skull. The blood . . .”

My stomach ached. Head wounds were notorious for bleeding copiously.

“What about the amulet?” he asked.

“The amulet?” she repeated. “What about it?”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Was Miles wearing it?”

“He was always wearing it. Why?”

“Are you certain he was wearing it that night?” he asked.

“Positive,” she said. “I remember asking him if Ve knew about it. Why does the amulet matter at all?”

I said, “The amulet is missing. It wasn't found with Miles' body.”

She didn't move a muscle, but something shifted in her eyes, and I figured she believed Steve had taken the amulet.

Had he been lying to Glinda and me about not knowing of its existence?

If so, he was an excellent liar.

“I don't know where it is,” she said, then glanced at her watch. “I should get going. I have a lot to do before this afternoon. Will you be at the police station?”

“I'll be there,” he said. “But, Penelope, I'm not sure anything much will happen other than taking your statement.”