fourteen

“Oh my God.” I knelt beside Jason, limp on the sidewalk. Lightly, I ran my hands over him, checking for any blood or bones out of place. Something seemed wrong with his shoulder. Blood streamed from a cut on his head, making scarlet ribbons down one side of his face.

He groaned and sat up, and his dark skin turned gray.

“Don’t try to move,” I said.

The sedan squealed around a corner.

Leo and Adele ran onto the sidewalk. “Mad, are you hurt?” Adele asked.

“No, but Jason is.”

The two reporters banged out the front door, and Herb and Xavier followed. The reporters whipped out their cell phones and took pictures.

“Stop that,” I said, shrill.

“What’s going on?” Herb asked, and then he caught site of Jason. The little man’s eyes rolled up in his head and he fainted. Xavier and Harper leapt forward, catching him beneath the shoulders and lowering him gently to the brick sidewalk. Harper loosened Herb’s bow tie.

“What happened?” the reporter from Sacramento barked.

“Adele,” I said, “call 911! Tell them an officer’s been hit by a car.”

She raced into the tea room next door.

Fear and anger tangling inside me, I examined Jason’s head. The cut didn’t seem deep, but it was bleeding like crazy. “Leo! First aid kit.”

He ran inside the museum.

“Detective,” the red-headed reporter asked, “do you think this was an attack by the same person who killed Bill Eldrich?”

“Will you shut up?” I snarled.

“I’m only doing my job,” she said and snapped another photo.

Leo skidded back out the door and wrenched open the ancient first aid kit. “What do you need?”

Scrabbling inside the dented metal box, I pulled out a gauze pack. I ripped it open and pressed it to Jason’s forehead. It darkened with blood. The gauze wasn’t enough. “Get the cheesecloth from the Gallery.”

Leo raced back inside.

“It’s only a cut,” Jason said.

“Be quiet.”

“What about Herb?” Xavier fanned the paranormal collector.

My brain stumbled. What did you do for someone who’s fainted? “Put something under his head. Keep him warm.”

But Harper had already done that. Her suede blazer was draped over Herb’s torso, and her thick scarf was folded beneath his head. “He’ll be all right,” she said. “Take care of the detective.”

Xavier sat back on his heels and scratched his salt-and-pepper goatee. “This curse is worse than I thought.”

Mike, the sandy-haired local reporter, squatted beside me. “Can I help?”

Panic welled in my throat. “I think he’s dislocated his shoulder—”

“I’m sitting right here,” Jason said tartly.

“—and head wounds always bleed like crazy. I think it looks worse than it is.” But who knew what sort of damage had been done to Jason internally?

Leo returned with plastic bags of the cheese cloth. Kneeling, I ripped open a bag in quick jerky motions. My bloody hands stained the white cloth. I laid it against Jason’s forehead and prayed the only injuries he had were the ones I could see.

A siren wailed in the distance.

Jason was alive, and the ambulance was on its way, and I was not going to give in to my fear.

A blue muscle car screeched to the curb. Laurel leapt out and sucked in her breath. Knocking me sideways, she took my place beside Jason. “Slate. What happened?”

“Hit and run,” Jason said. “First three letters on the license plate were XSH.”

“What color?” she barked.

“Gray,” I said.

“Blue,” Adele said.

“I thought it was green,” Leo said.

“You two were inside,” I said. “How could you see anything?”

“Through the window,” Adele said.

“It was gray,” Jason said through gritted teeth.

Laurel cursed and raced to her open car door, bumping into paramedics on their way up the sidewalk.

I scuttled away and let the professionals take over. Then I remembered I had another guest in distress and hurried over to the two exorcists.

Herb groaned and sat up. “What happened?”

“You passed out,” Xavier said.

“What? Why?” Herb glanced at the blue-shirted paramedics, at the blood dripping down Jason’s chin. His eyes rolled up and he sank to the sidewalk again.

“He’s got a phobia about blood,” Xavier said, apologetic.

“So he became a collector of haunted objects?” Harper asked.

White teacup in hand, Adele knelt beside me. She handed me a cloth napkin. I wiped my hands and realized too late I’d ruined the white fabric. Customers from the tea room clustered in its open door.

Herb twitched and sat up on his elbow.

“Tea?” Adele walked to him and extended the delicate cup.

“Thank you.” He reached for it, noticed the paramedics, and sagged.

“Oh no you don’t,” Harper said, shifting sideways to block his view. “Herb, you will not faint!”

Color flooded his cheeks and he straightened, then took the cup from Adele. “Thank you, miss.”

Adele glanced toward the tearoom. “I’d better return to my customers.”

“Thanks for everything.” I rose to hand her the napkin, remembered the bloodstains, and crumpled it in my hands. I glanced at the paramedics. They still huddled around Jason, blocking him from view.

Smiling tightly, Adele walked to her tea room. She gently shooed in the gawkers and closed the front door behind her.

Herb raised a bony finger. “The first thing I want to say is, this was not my fault.”

“What wasn’t your fault?” I asked, stumbling to my feet.

“Those bells are now bound,” Herb said. “I’ve checked the energy around that box, and no negative energies are entering or escaping. The bells had nothing to do with that man getting hit.” He slurped his tea.

“Oh,” I said. “It’s okay. I knew that.” The maniac behind the wheel was responsible and no one else. Except for maybe me. Me and my stupid idea to hold an exorcism for cowbells I’d never believed were haunted in the first place. So much more could have gone wrong. What if someone had been trampled? What if Jason was hurt worse than I thought?

“I can’t explain the bites that people claimed to experience,” Xavier said, “but Herb’s probably right—there’s another object in your museum that’s causing the problem.”

Harper shook her head and looked away.

“Now if you like,” the exorcist continued, “I can examine the museum and determine which objects are problematic. I charge two hundred dollars an hour.”

I closed my eyes and prayed for serenity. But when I opened them, Xavier and Herb were still there. “I don’t think that will be necessary,” I said, “but thanks for the offer.”

They shrugged. Xavier helped Herb up and they walked into the museum.

The paramedics wheeled in a stretcher, gouging a chunk out of a nearby plum tree. They helped Jason onto it, and I jogged over to them.

“Is he going to be all right?” I asked as they raised the stretcher.

“I’ll be fine.” Jason grasped my hand.

“Jason, I’m so sorry.” I blinked rapidly. “If I hadn’t held this event—”

“This isn’t your fault, Maddie.”

“Ma’am?” one of the paramedics asked. “We need to go.”

“Sorry.” Releasing Jason’s hand, I followed them as they loaded him into the ambulance and shut the rear doors.

Back on the sidewalk, I rubbed my face. Cops in blue uniforms strode about the rooftop opposite.

Someone grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. Laurel scowled down at me, her neck muscles cording. “What happened?” Her short blond hair was rumpled as if she’d escaped a windstorm.

“Jason and I walked outside,” I said, voice flat. “Someone drove up onto the sidewalk and hit him.” And Jason had shoved me out of the driver’s path.

“What was Slate doing here?”

“He was here for the event. What were you doing here?” Laurel had arrived awfully quickly. Almost as if she’d been surveilling me.

“What event?” she asked.

My shoulders hunched. “A ritual to de-curse the cowbells.”

She blew out her breath. “Tell me that lunatic Herb wasn’t involved.”

“He’s inside.”

She turned on her booted heel and strode into the museum, stopping just past the doorway. “No he’s not.”

“Maybe he’s in the Fortune Telling Room.” I squeezed past her. Herb and Xavier were nowhere to be seen. “He likes to hide in the spirit cabinet.”

Leo sat on the barstool behind the register. “Where’s Herb?” I asked.

He shrugged. “He and his friend left through the tea room. You know how he feels about cops.”

Laurel cursed and charged to the bookcase. “Where’s the damn secret lever?”

“On the book that says Open.” I trotted to her side, but she’d already opened the case. She ran into the tea room and down the elegant hallway that led to the alley.

Leo stared at me. “Is the detective …?”

I swallowed. “Detective Slate will be okay.” I only hoped it was true.

Not even Harper and Adele were able to cheer me up after the disaster. Once I’d cleaned up the museum, all I’d had the heart to do was go home and eat pizza. The only good news I got before going to bed was a call from Slate, reassuring me that all he had was a dislocated shoulder and a few stitches in his skull.

I hadn’t been reassured. This was my mess from start to finish. I’d bought the bells, publicized the curse, and had the bright idea of a public binding ritual.

The museum was closed on Mondays, but that morning I went to work anyway. My first project was to scrub at a blood stain on the sidewalk—Jason’s blood—with my ragged mop. I squeezed out the dirty water and rubbed the mop across the bricks. Spots of blood flecked the brick wall as well.

GD, observing from the open doorway, sneezed.

“Sure,” I said. “It’s easy to criticize when you’re not doing any work.”

The cat yawned and retreated inside the museum.

Thirty minutes later, I peeled off my rubber gloves and studied the area. I’d gotten rid of most of the stains, along with several pieces of hardened gum. If I looked hard, I thought I could still see blood. But I doubted anyone would be crawling around Sherlock Holmes-style inspecting the brickwork.

The wall phone jangled. Forgetting the museum was closed, I hurried inside and answered it. “Paranormal Museum, this is Maddie speaking.”

“I heard bells,” a man whispered. “And something bit me last night. Is it true?”

My gaze clouded. “Is it true that you heard bells and something bit you?”

“Is it true that you made the curse worse?”

“No. The curse is not worse.” I winced. Now I was rhyming? “The binding ritual worked. My experts assure me that everything is fine.”

“But I heard bells, I tell you.”

“It’s ten days until Christmas. Bells are ringing everywhere. I’ve got one over my door. Who is this?”

He hung up.

Atop the antique cash register, GD meowed.

“Don’t start.” My grand plan to cool the town’s fears had crashed like the Hindenburg. “How am I supposed to debunk a curse?”

GD sneezed and dropped to the floor. He swaggered to Gryla’s cave and vanished beneath the ogress’s skirts.

“Fat lot of help you are.”

Okay, forget the curse. Someone had tried to blow up my mother and run Jason and me down—someone who had killed Bill with a bow and arrow. And since anyone could have tried to run us down, and, it seemed, blow us up too, I was left with only the arrows as a clue. Penny at the Wine and Visitors Bureau had been an almost-Olympic archer. And according to Tabitha Wilde, she had had a motive to kill Bill Eldrich. I had a hard time picturing Penny as an arrow-slinging killer, but I couldn’t ignore this lead. Dean Pinkerton was also handy with a bow and arrow, but it was easier to annoy Penny.

I locked up the museum and squinted into the crisp morning light. On the sidewalk, the plum trees were barren. Green cords of unlit twinkle lights wrapped around their silvery-gray bark.

I walked past Mason’s motorcycle shop. In its window, Belle adjusted a holly wreath over the headlight of a cherry-red Harley. It was a gorgeous bike—even I could admire its lines—but I had zero desire to ever get on one again.

I slowed to a halt, and our gazes met. Deliberately, Belle turned her back.

She had reason to be peeved with me, even though I hadn’t spilled the beans to Mason about her secret Christmas Cow bet. Or was it a secret? Just because Mason hadn’t brought it up didn’t mean he didn’t know about it. Maybe he was keeping mum to protect her. Or even to protect Dieter. I still wasn’t clear on the legality of the contractor’s betting service, but I was pretty sure it fell on the wrong side of the law.

I got into my pickup. It coughed, and I drove off.

The Wine and Visitors Bureau was also closed on Monday mornings. But I knew the not-so-secret entrance, a metal door in the brick side wall. And I knew Penny would be there. She was always there.

I rapped on the cold metal. It clanged hollowly beneath my knuckles. Blowing into my hands to warm them, I waited.

The door creaked open and Penny peered out.

She opened the door wider and tugged down the hem of her holiday sweater. It managed to incorporate wine bottles, goblets, and howling holiday wolves. “Oh. I thought you were a delivery.”

“Can I come in?”

“Sure.” She stepped away from the door.

I walked into the dimly lit hall and shivered.

“Since it’s only me today,” she said, “I didn’t bother turning on the heat. Come into my office. I’m running a space heater there.”

I followed her into the room stacked with boxes and brochures. Penny lowered herself into a swivel chair behind her desk, and I shifted a stack of wine maps from the chair opposite and sat.

“What can I do for you?” Penny asked.

“You heard what happened yesterday at the museum?” Lowering my head, I studied her. I’d invited Penny to the binding event, but she’d been conspicuously absent. True, it had been a last-minute thing, but Penny was usually on hand to support me. After all, my museum was an associate member of the Wine and Visitors Bureau.

Her lips pressed together. “Terrible. I was sorry I couldn’t make it, but now I’m glad. No offense.”

“None taken.” I faked a smile. “Did you have a conflicting appointment?”

She eyed me. “A family matter. I read in the papers that the detective’s injuries weren’t life threatening.”

“Yes. The car grazed him. But you do know how much damage an arrow can do when it hits.”

She straightened in surprise, her grape earrings tangling in her gray hair. “How would I know that? All I’ve hit are targets.”

“Well, you know more about it than I do,” I said peevishly.

“I had no reason to want Bill or anyone else dead.”

“Oh?” I cocked my head.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I heard you and Bill were at odds over some tax funding.”

“At odds?” Penny’s ample chest heaved. “He stabbed the Wine and Visitors Bureau in the back. I was furious when he submitted his own bid on behalf of the Dairy Association. If it wasn’t for him, I’m sure the bureau would have gotten the extra funding. He sank that opportunity. It was pure greed. Fear and greed.”

“So it’s true,” I said unhappily.

“Yes, I was angry. But not angry enough to kill him. Not over a government grant.”

All my instincts said Penny was no killer. But my instincts had also told me a public exorcism was a good idea. Clearly, my instincts were the Benedict Arnold of trustworthiness. “All right,” I said. “Then who did hate Bill enough to kill him?”

She rolled a pencil between her fingers. “I couldn’t say.”

“Penny, Bill’s dead. A policeman could have been killed. If you know anything, you have to come forward.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“But you suspect something?”

She didn’t respond.

“Please,” I said.

She stared at a metal bookshelf stacked with wine boxes. “There were some odd … currents between Bill and Tabitha at the last meeting. I’m not sure if you’ve met her. Tabitha Wilde is one of our town council representatives.”

“We’ve met. Which meeting was this?”

“The Christmas Cow committee meeting.”

I relaxed in my chair. “Interesting. What do you mean by ‘odd currents’?”

Her round shoulders lifted and dropped. “I’m not sure how to explain it. Normally they were quite at ease with each other. But that night, something seemed strained. They wouldn’t even look at each other.”

“Do you have any idea why?”

“If I did, I’d tell you. Or I’d tell the police if I thought it had any bearing on what’s going on.”

“Did anything else happen between them?”

“Not between Bill and Tabitha, no,” she said slowly.

I sat forward, my knees brushing an open cardboard box. “Between Bill and someone else?”

“At our last meeting, I overheard something between Bill and Kendra.”

“Kendra Breathnach? The developer? She’s not on the committee.”

“No,” Penny said, “but she donated the straw for the Cow. Didn’t you see the sign thanking her company for its sponsorship? You must have seen it at the park. It’s quite prominently displayed.”

“Right.” I vaguely remembered a sign getting knocked down by the fire department.

“At any rate, it sounded like an argument, but I can’t be sure.”

“What were they saying?”

“Something about zoning. They were standing outside the Wine and Visitors Bureau after the meeting. I thought everyone had left and was locking up. I think I startled them.”

“Who was talking about the zoning?” I asked.

“Kendra. Her voice was quite sharp. Maybe it was nothing. It was a cold night, and it had been a long meeting. All our nerves were frayed, except of course your mother’s.”

I made a mental note to ask my mother about the so-called tension. I’d need to follow up with Kendra and Tabitha too. Not liking the idea, I rubbed my temple. “When was this?” I asked.

“December 5th.” Penny regarded me speculatively. “There is one other thing.”

“Oh?”

“I only bring it up because … well. Maybe I shouldn’t bring it up at all. I have tremendous respect for your mother.”

“My mother?” I straightened. “What do you mean?”

“I know she had nothing to do with this. She’d never cause problems for your museum.”

I tapped my fingers on the arm of the chair. “Penny, what about my mother?”

“There seemed to be something between Bill and your mother as well.”

“He thought guarding the cow was beneath him,” I said. “My mom wanted him to set an example and help out.”

“No.” Penny pursed her mouth. “I don’t think that was it at all.”

“Oh? Then what?”

Penny colored. “It’s none of my business. I’m sure I was wrong.”

“Penny, just tell me.”

“It’s only that …” She flushed more deeply. “I was under the impression that Bill and your mother were dating.”