Doyle Times Police Blotter, Saturday, May 25th
Assault: Police arrested an elderly Doyle resident after she attacked a newspaper boy with her cane on May 24th, at 8:12 AM. She claimed he deserved it because he intentionally missed getting the paper onto her front porch.
My heart thumped, my phone biting into the edge of my palm. Hermia was someone I liked. Respected. I tried to tell myself we’d all done things we weren’t proud of. I certainly wasn’t perfect. But this...
“Hi, Jayce,” Hermia said in a sleepy voice.
“She knew, didn’t she?”
“Jayce? What—?”
“Gertrude.” I kicked a wayward throw pillow across the room. It bounced off a white-painted wall and fell to the floor near Picatrix.
The black cat meowed and scampered into my bedroom.
I winced. “Your sister knew about the affair, because you were using her house.”
“No.” Her voice was a broken whisper.
A hard lump clotted my throat, and I swallowed. Oh, Hermia. “Was she going to divorce John? Cut you both out of her life?”
“She came home early one day,” she said, tremulous. “John thought we’d played it off. But I could see it in her eyes. She hated us both. She couldn’t have children, and… But she never said anything. And then I told myself I was imagining it, that she wasn’t avoiding me, that she really was as busy as she claimed.”
“And that’s when John started meeting you in Angels Camp.” Pain shot through my palm, and I relaxed my clenched hand. White crescent moons marked the skin where my nails had pressed.
“It had been too close a call,” she whispered. “Meeting at my place became a regular thing. He said it was easier that way, he could blame his absences on his work schedule.”
I sat on the couch and pulled a green pillow against my stomach. “It couldn’t have been easy, comforting her when you were grieving too.” Poor Hermia. Poor Gertrude.
“We grieved together.” She paused, and in a fainter voice said, “No, it wasn’t easy.”
“You were at her house the day Gertrude was killed.”
“Yeah. You saw me there.”
I shut my eyes, my chin lowering. Three people were dead. My sisters might be in danger. Others could be as well. “No, you were there earlier.”
“Oh. Right. I came, but she wasn’t home, so I left.”
But Professor Fager had said he hadn’t recognized her. How could he not have noticed that red Mustang? The professor seemed like the kind of guy who noticed a lot.
“You went inside?” I asked.
“I have a key,” she said defensively. “We’re sisters.”
“What were you looking for?”
“I was looking for Gertrude. She’d called me that day, upset.”
“She called about John?”
“No, about that yoga instructor, Orlando. The creep hit on her, and she’d been a widow for all of a week.”
“What did she do?”
“She told him off and said she didn’t think she could return to the yoga studio.”
If Orlando was an obsessed lover, and she’d rejected him... But no, he couldn’t have killed Ben Daley, so the odds were he hadn’t killed Gertrude either.
“And your garage?” I asked.
“What about my garage?”
“Where’s it going to move when you lose your space?”
“I don’t— I’m not—”
“Where do you plan to move?” I said, heartless.
The ivy climbing the white-brick wall seemed to curl in on itself.
“Jayce,” she said brokenly. “What are you doing? What do you want?”
Nauseated, I clutched the pillow more tightly. This was the end of our friendship, a friendship that mattered. But my family mattered more. “Where?”
“I would have found somewhere.”
“But now you don’t have to?”
“Of course, I still have to. My landlord’s doubling the rent.”
Because even if she used her inheritance from her sister, she’d never make a profit if the rent was doubled. Burning her inheritance on rent would only put off the day until she had to leave.
What would I do in a similar situation?
“You’re planning on buying land with your inheritance and building your own garage,” I said.
She didn’t respond.
“No more landlords,” I continued.
“Can you blame me?”
Would she have killed two people for a garage? Only if she were insane. And if she was insane, she’d done a good job hiding it. But certain types of lunatics were good at that.
“I don’t have anything left,” she choked out. “John’s gone. My sister’s gone. My parents won’t be around forever. Gertrude would have wanted me to use her money for the garage.”
A forgiving Gertrude might have. But I wasn’t so sure Gertrude had reached forgiveness when she’d died. “Because she knew John was ending things with you?”
There was a long silence.
Hermia hung up.
I felt dirty. What I’d done had been dirty. But necessary. Rubbing my palms on my gray tee, I paced the throw rug in front of the couch in the brick alcove.
So, Gertrude had known, or suspected, the affair. According to their neighbor, Gertrude and John had a had a fight the night before he died. Had she confronted her husband over her sister? Laid down an ultimatum?
I opened a window and turned on the fan to clear the clinging scent of smoke.
John had been on his way to Hermia’s when he died. Had that been his last visit?
And then Hermia’s odd visit to Gertrude’s house the day of her death... Had she parked her car farther up the street so she wouldn’t be noticed?
I stared at a discarded sandal on the kilim rug.
But Hermia had been noticed, by Professor Fager. And he may or may not have implemented a harassment campaign against the Marsh family.
And what about Deputy Ben Daley? He must have been the one to set my garbage cans on fire, because the timing...
The timing. I rubbed my nose. That burnt odor wasn’t going away. If anything, it seemed to be thickening.
There was something about timing, and a red car. The red car...
A boom rattled the windows.
I yelped. That hadn’t been thunder. I wobbled for a minute, then ran to the open window.
The phone rang in my hand. Startled, I nearly dropped it. I glanced at the screen. Karin.
“Where are you?” I asked. “Did you hear that?”
“The bang? Lenore thought it might be a car accident, but if you heard it... Never mind that. Lenore may have a way to destroy the book.”
“That’s great news.” A fire truck wailed in the distance, and my muscles tightened. Earthquakes were scary and disturbing, but it was the threat of fire that made me break into a cold sweat.
“Yeah,” Karin said. “Lenore’s in mourning over the idea of destroying a book, especially an old and rare one. But she knows we have to do it. The job’s going to take at least two people though. And I’ve got to run to that charity thing and keep an eye on the sisters. Nick just called. It’s already started. Could you—?”
“Go.” I grabbed my purse off the couch. “I’ll bring the book to Lenore’s. I’m leaving now.”
“So am I,” she said. “The event goes until nine, but I think we can squeak out earlier. We’ll come to Lenore’s afterward, just in case you need two more pairs of hands.”
“We’ll do fine,” I said, my words clipped. “If the Wyrrd Systerrs start casting any spells—”
“I’ll text an SOS.”
The sirens swelled.
“Be careful.” I moved toward the window, and my eyes teared. Wherever the fire was, it was near, or it was big.
“I’ll be with Nick,” she said. “Oh, damn. I’m really late. See you later.” Karin hung up.
I leaned out the window. A fire engine honked. The massive truck slowly maneuvered around the traffic on Main Street. A Prius swerved from the jam. It plowed into the side of the fire truck.
I gasped. “No!”
Firemen clambered from the truck.
Horns blatted. A dazed-looking man emerged from the Prius.
I exhaled. Everyone seemed okay, but where was the fire? Leaning further from the window, I peered down Main Street.
Smoke billowed upward, past Antoine’s, past Lenore’s bookshop.
My hands clenched on the windowsill. Town hall was on fire.
I pulled back inside and called Brayden.
“Jayce, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Town hall’s on fire.”
“I know. It’s been crazy here. Look, I think you should evacuate. Go to Karin’s in Angels Camp.”
“I can’t.” I glanced out the window. The firetruck lumbered on, one fireman staying behind to talk to the Prius owner. “Every disaster that’s struck has been connected to magic. This fire has got to be part of the Wyrrd Systerrs’ spell.”
“Is there anything you can do to stop it?”
I paused, surprised.
“People are getting hurt,” he continued. “Most of the injuries have been minor, but there have been some bad accidents in the panic. My department’s stretched to its limit.” He hesitated, his voice lowering. “Jayce, I can’t be there for you right now.”
“It’s okay.” My heart softened, warming. “You do what you need to do.”
“You too. And Jayce, I love you. Don’t get hurt.”
“I love you too. I’ll be careful.”
“I’ve gotta go. Sorry.” He hung up.
I stared at the phone, and my heart twisted. We’d come through so much. I’d tried to protect Brayden. He’d tried to protect me. We’d pushed each other away and then come crashing together again. Hurt each other. Did our hapless best to repair each other. Did the wrong things. The right things. And now... it felt like we were finally okay. More than okay. Really, really good.
As long as Brayden stayed safe.
I made a shielding gesture to bolster his protective auric web.
Then I mentally grounded myself into the earth. I reached out with my senses toward town hall.
All my senses.
A wall of icy energy shoved me back, and I staggered.
Clenching my teeth, I imagined a white wall and pushed my other auric feelers outward. Shards of ice stung me.
I released my magic and sagged, grabbing a kitchen chair for balance. My head throbbed. Now I knew the Lodge’s spell had caused the fire. And I prayed no one was inside.
My mouth went dry, visions of Main Street in flames rising to my mind. The town wouldn’t let the fire get out of control. There was too much at stake. But could the firemen get past the mob on Main Street? And like Lenore the headless mannequin, this hadn’t been a real vision — just my own fears imagining the worst...
I froze.
My vision. The timing. Gertrude, looking out the window. And Ben Daley, ticketing an old British sedan on the highway...
I gripped the windowsill. The killer of John and Gertrude Marsh was insane. And I knew who it was.
Professor Fager.
The room tilted, and I was in the circus, my sisters on the sand before me.