Witch One Dunnit? (Rachael Penzra mystery) (20 page)

       She chose to accept that as my being entirely on her side.  She simply didn’t hear any possible negativity.  It was so nice to be young and completely self-confident.  I saw it in my own children.  I wished I’d enjoyed it in my own youth.  It’s difficult for older people to develop such unique confidence.  It belongs to the young.  We older folk know too much.

       So off she went (not too long after we’d gotten home) with Joe.  I hoped his interest was not based on his job.  I didn’t worry too much about it, though.  Duty doesn’t bring that dumb, adoring look into the male eye. 

       That left me with almost two hours of blessed peace and quiet before Lucinda called and arranged to meet me at her house.  I couldn’t even think quickly enough to dither.  I accepted fate and agreed.

CHAPTER ELEVEN      

From the Wiccan Rede:

When the wind comes from the South

Love will kiss thee on the mouth.

       It was half past seven when I reached the Dewitt house, and there was still plenty of daylight.  That suited me just fine.  I’m not one of the people who is desperately keen on an extra hour of daylight.  I like my early to bed habit, even if all I’m doing there is reading.  And I like to feel it’s properly dark, time for relaxing from the day.  Now I was grateful it
wasn’t
dark.  I felt curiously exposed to danger.  This was the first time I’d been out alone in the evening since Shelly’s death.  The isolation, I decided, was the cause of my uneasiness.  I have enough big-city years behind me to be cautious.  The more I thought about it, the less unhappy I was that Patsy had a trained law officer as her escort.

       Lucinda greeted me at the door.  She must have been hovering just inside, watching for my car to pull up.  “Now tell me what you saw this afternoon,” she immediately insisted. 

       “Lucinda,” I sounded whiny in my own ears.  “Nothing.  I just felt a wave of...  wickedness.  I couldn’t locate it.  It was just there.  And then it was gone.  I’m so sorry!  I don’t think I’m the person you need for this job.  I’m too new at this. It hit me so hard I couldn’t get myself together and trace it fast enough. You need a professional, someone who’s done this long enough to have some control over it. ” 

       “I’ve arranged for that,” she told me, sharply.  “But that’ll be different than your work.  You sensed something.  He was there, wasn’t he?  There couldn’t possibly be two people emanating an emotion as strong as evil at the same time.  It was one of us, wasn’t it?”

       “I have no clue to who it was.” I tried to make her understand.  “There were other people there besides the ones from the circle.  I’d never met those neighbor women of yours, for instance, or any of your caterers.  For all I know, the feeling came from one of them, or even from someone who wasn’t even
there
.  And Lucinda, this hatred is aimed at
me.
”

       “Of course it’s aimed at you.  Everyone knows you’re trying to find out who killed Shelly.  It’s different now than it was before.  Whoever hated
her
now hates
you
.  She
must
have been a threat to him, somehow.  Now
you’re
the threat.”

       “Only I’m
not
!” I insisted, a little frantically.  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.  I’m not making any headway at all.  I haven’t got a clue about how to find out anything.  And who told them?  There are only a few people who know what I’m trying to do for you.”

       “Oh, I told everybody,” she said, loftily dismissing any consideration for me or my safety.  “I want him to know.  I want him to be afraid.  I know what I’m doing.”

       “Do you know who did it?” I demanded.  “You keep talking about ‘him’ as if you know who it is.”

       “Him, her, it doesn’t matter what term I use.  ‘Him’ is just simpler.  And no, I don’t know who did it, but I intend to find out.  This isn’t going to be one of those unsolved crimes.  I have the money and the determination to follow this through, and you damn well better believe I will.”

       “You’re sure you don’t have some idea, some suspicion,” I prodded her.  “If you do, please tell me.  Or tell the police.  It’s too dangerous for you to go around hinting to people.  Whoever this is, he, she, whatever, has already killed once.  He
or she
won’t mind doing it again, and if you please, I’d just as soon not be the next in line.”

       She looked at me with barely-hidden contempt, but behind the contempt was a sense of desperation.  The thing keeping her going was the need for revenge.  As long as she felt she was doing something towards solving the murder, she could work out her loss.  As angry as I felt, and that was plenty angry considering how she was putting my life in danger, I still couldn’t completely deny her my help.  Or what she considered to be my help. 

       Then it struck me that maybe she knew how useless my abilities would be.  Was she telling everyone about my “help” in order to set me up as a target?  No.  Not even Lucinda would do something as selfish as that ... would she?  I think my face must have shown something of my feelings, because she dragged me into the kitchen and dug out masses of food, obviously leftovers from the afternoon.  “Here, I want you to take some of this home with you.  It’s really much too good to waste, and I won’t be eating this much in weeks.” 

       Her cheeks were beginning to look gaunt instead of firm.  Even her muscle tone seemed to be deteriorating under the burning heat of her need.  She knew exactly how to bribe me, too, I noticed with grim disgust.  I was the psychic one?  Ha!  Or maybe my greed for good food was unmistakable.  Not a nice thought, but I didn’t turn down her offer.  Instead I tried to find out exactly what she was doing.

       “Lucinda, have you hired someone else?  Someone I don’t know about?  I hope you aren’t wasting your time on some phone-psychic or something.”

       “Of course not,” she scoffed, but I thought she was holding something back.  “I’m not such a fool.  Any psychic ability they might claim is buried alive in their attempts to scam people.  No, I trust you’ll find out something definite for me.  If you
must
know, I’ve been working hard on casting some spells.  I haven’t asked anyone from the coven to help me.  I can’t trust them.  I don’t want this known, but if you can’t keep your mouth shut about it, I guess it doesn’t matter.  I’m not an amateur with spells, Rachael.  Don’t think that for a minute.  I’m very careful about them, and very reluctant to cast them, but when I do cast a spell, I know what I’m doing.  Spells can be powerful weapons, you know, when they’re done properly.  And I’m doing them properly.”

       I certainly hoped so.  I agreed with her one-hundred percent.  One of the first things that amateur witches usually do is try to cast spells, and the results can be non-existent at best, explosive at worst.  Our society has been raised seeing the Hollywood version of a witch.  A couple of fresh frogs ears, half a dozen newt toenails, a few guttural chants and ... Kaboom!  Your husband’s secretary (the one he’s been fooling around with for the past six months) now has breasts the size of prune pits, and every bit as smooth.

       New witches, young ones in particular, tend to make the mistake of casting spells to achieve petty results, and that’s exactly what they receive . . .petty results.  Spells have a way of biting you in the butt if you aren’t careful.

       And spells can take a lot of time.  Some witches use fresh herbs and plants, not always available on a moment’s notice.  I use spring water, water I’ve collected from a spring myself rather than out of a container labeled spring water.  This is important to me.  I couldn’t tell you the reasoning behind it.  I enjoy gathering my materials by myself, but not being able to do so wouldn’t necessarily weaken my spells.  What
could
weaken them is not doing things the way I felt, deep inside, they should be done. 

       Lucinda, taking my silent thought as criticism, broke into my reverie.  “I’ve told you I know what I’m doing.  I’m not a neophyte at this.  I’ve given this a lot of thought and prayer.  You just do your part properly and everything will work out.”

       “My part being the sacrificial lamb?” I asked her quietly.

       “Of course not!  Don’t be dramatic.  You’re not in any danger, no more than any of the rest of us.  Just use your talents and let me know when something comes through to you.  I need that knowledge.  If you’d just relax and let things flow, you’d be more helpful.”

       I’d have liked to tell her what I thought of someone who hassled someone else and then told her to
relax
.  As usual, I didn’t, remaining polite and thoroughly stressed.  Besides, she had a point, much as I disliked conceding it, even in the privacy of my mind.  You can’t force psychic work.  The worst thing to do is to try and push it.  That’s why I wasn’t the best choice for her work.  It takes years of training to control your powers, and even then it’s only to a limited extent.  Still, I’d have a lot better chance of being useful if I could make myself relax.  At least that’s something that can be done both physically and mentally.

       “You’re right,” I admitted.  “I haven’t been letting things work in their own way.  You really do need someone with more experience, but I’ll try and get my act together.  I do want to help you, Lucinda, but I feel absolutely useless.”

       She gave me a cold glance, and I shuddered inside.  The moment was gone.  That’s all it was – a feeling that made me shudder.  I couldn’t define it.  I didn’t feel threatened by, or disgusted with her.  I do wish I was less sensitive to emotions.  Or that I could at least accurately
interpret
them.

       “You’re not being useless,” she sighed, her voice suddenly sounding exhausted.  “Everything together will work.  I need you.  Please don’t let me down.”

       Of course I promised fervently I wouldn’t.  I’m not simply a sucker for emotional blackmail, I also have a dramatic streak I try to keep well hidden.  Press the right button, though, and I react with pure emotion, not a thought in my head but the moment.

       Having won my cooperation with physical and emotional bribery, she started to talk, beginning with her late-in-life pregnancy (the doctor was amazed at her fortitude through the worst case of morning sickness he’d ever encountered), the delivery (she was in labor from start to finish for over 36 hours), Shelly’s childhood (the poor girl suffered from virtually every known childhood ailment, always sicker than any other child), achievements (Shelly could do everything better than anyone else.  The only thing holding her back from world dominance was jealous teachers, false friends, etc.) and then the topper, coming just about when I’d stopped listening.

       “And she admired
you
so much, you know.  I don’t understand it, but she thought you were an extremely reasonable and intelligent older woman.”

       I snorted, as much from the age label as from the idea.  “She should have talked to my kids.  They have an entirely different opinion of how
reasonable and intelligent
I am.”

       “No, I’ve noticed it with your niece, too.  You seem to have a way with young people.  I’m afraid Shelly and I had several serious disagreements these past few years and....”

       She looked as though she were ready to burst into tears.  I’m about as useless as a man around crying women.  “Lucinda, get real!  Of course you did!  I came into the lives of two
very
young women, girls who are not
my
daughters, as someone who can treat them as adults, because I don’t know them well enough to think of them as children, and I don’t have the same sense of responsibility towards them a parent would have.  We had the best of two worlds.  I was new and interesting.  Shelly was able to guide me through those first days.  And make no mistake about it, she saved my butt.  I don’t know how I would have survived those first few weeks without her.  I had Patsy trying to figure out what she’d like best from the shop so we could hide it, and then present it to her at the end of the season.  She really did go above and beyond the call of duty.”

       She snuffled, painfully.  “There!  That’s exactly what I mean.  I never would have thought of something like that.  She hated me!”

       “And I would imagine some of your feelings towards her were sometimes less than loving,” I managed to sound dryly sarcastic.  “Lucinda!  Stop this.  I fought with my daughter Molly for at least five years.  I put more worry and energy into that child than into both the boys put together.  It was a nightmare.  Then she married, got pregnant, and became the daughter I’d always dreamed about.  We’re quite close now.  I’ve talked to her about it, but her opinion of those years is entirely different than mine. 
She
doesn’t remember thinking of me as the enemy. 
She
thinks we had a healthy, normal relationship.  And I can guarantee you Shelly felt the same way about you.  You have no idea how many times we heard about what Mother said about this and Mother said about that.  Behind your back, at least, she thought you were great, and she had a tremendous amount of respect for your opinion.”

       She actually blushed.  I was willing to bet that it’d been more than a few years since that had happened.  Hard to believe a woman who could be as obnoxious as Lucinda Dewitt could also be so vulnerable.