1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Seven Page 41

  Just seemed the wrong place.

  “There’s been a lot of talk on the web,” Martin said, reading through some of the notes Angela had e-mailed. “The word ‘bitch’ seems overly popular. Gloria Day seems to be accused of being a greedy, manipulative usurper, determined to rule all of Salem. She gives good cause for the world to believe modern-day witches to be old hags with saggy brooms and warts flying across the moon on broomsticks.’” He paused and looked at them. “Now that’s just mean. She’s old, yes. But certainly not ugly and doesn’t have any warts.”

  Officers had tried to pay a visit to Tandy Whitehall, but she’d not been at her shop, Magical Fantasies, nor at her house. Everyone was on the lookout for her. If she wasn’t found soon, sterner measures would be used. Sam believed Whitehall had to know they were looking for her. The media had sniffed out the latest murder with the speed of light. So quickly, in fact, that Jenna had wondered if they shouldn’t be looking for someone involved with the media. But Sam kept remembering Elyssa’s words. That the ghost mentioned the witchcraft trials and cults. That didn’t necessarily mean modern-day pagans. But the well-publicized feud between the two most prominent covens could not be ignored.

  Among the information Angela had sent was details on a legend. Sam had specifically asked about the Gullah culture and the boo-hag.

  “Listen to this,” he said, reading the information.

  And he told them about an old folk story and a boy named Billie Bob who just could not find a wife. So his father fixed him up with the daughter of a swamp woman. He was stunned when he met her. She was gorgeous, with dark eyes, dark hair, and a beautiful body. She didn’t want to be married by a priest, but was willing to stand before a judge. So they were married and she was the perfect wife by day. But at night she never came to bed. Suspecting the worst, Billie Bob, armed with sugar and honey and all manner of gifts, went to see a local conjuring woman. The old woman told him to pretend that he was asleep, then watch what his wife did. The next night Billie Bob did just that, following his wife up to the attic where she sat at a wheel and spun off her skin. All bloody muscle and bone, she headed out into the night. Billie Bob was terrified, so he went back to the old conjuring woman who told him he had to paint every window and door in the house blue, except for one. She also told him to splash salt and pepper on her discarded skin. He did both, and when she returned home, she found herself trapped, as the blue doors were a weakness. When she slipped back into her skin, the salt and pepper burned her horribly. In a panic, she crashed through an attic window and turned as bright as a falling star, her body exploding into chunks of flesh that were enjoyed by the swamp gators. Billie Bob was sad. The conjuring woman told him that he should not be. He’d had no wife, only a boo-hag. Once she’d tired of him, she would have brought him to her boo-daddy, who would have eaten his flesh, drank his blood, and gnawed at his bones.

  “But Billie Bob didn’t become chow,” Sam said. “It’s a bit like a vampire story, or even a story about our old concept of witches, bringing their new recruits to Satan. Their version of a boo-daddy.”

  “And what does a boo-hag have to do with Salem?” Martin asked.

  “What about the Gullah culture up here?” Sam asked.

  “We have a few transplants, but—”

  A uniformed officer entered the room, escorting Devin and Rocky. Jenna rose to quickly hug and welcome the newcomers. As it turned out, Rocky knew Detective Gary Martin. They explained what had just happened.

  “A second murder?” Rocky asked. “People are being killed in period costume. Not to profile anyone here, but—”

  “We’re looking for the head of the opposing Wiccan coven now,” Martin made clear.

  Rocky looked at Sam. “Divide and conquer? We’ve been reading the briefs on the murders all the way here.”

  “What do you mean ‘divide and conquer?’” Martin asked.

  “We’ll go off and interview members of the opposing team,” Devin explained. “The more of us talking to people in a more casual manner, the better.”

  “And you think––”

  Rocky leaned forward, “Gary, these are our old haunting grounds. We’ve dealt with murder here before. Bad things, involving people we knew. Out on the streets, we can do a lot of good.”

  Martin nodded. “But I need to be in the loop on everything. I was planning on heading to the mortuary tonight. I want to keep an eye on the place now that it has reopened. Two people are dead either in or near that place. But John Bradbury was no Wiccan.”

  “No, but he supported Tandy Whitehall,” Sam said.

  “How did you know that?” Martin asked.

  “From hanging out in a bar.”

  “We don’t have any viable suspects,” Sam said, “except for Tandy Whitehall. And that’s just because she seems to have a motive. She might also have an alibi.”

  “And unless we get out on the street, we’ll have no idea about anything,” Rocky said. “Hey, this is Salem. And Salem at Samhain and Halloween? That means hope.”

  “I’m pretty sure a little nook or hole-in-the-wall bar is where we’ll find Tandy Whitehall,” Jenna said. “Surrounded by those who’ll protect her.”

  Martin seemed both indignant and worried. “And that could be bad. They could be armed with more than curses. Man kills his wife. Son-in-law kills father-in-law. Junkie kills for drugs. That’s the usual things. But these people around here are fanatics. You don’t think they’ll turn this into a stand-off, do you?”

  “This killer doesn’t want to get caught,” Devin said. “He, or she, or they. And as for my real thoughts, I can’t help but think that it’s not this Tandy Whitehall at all. It’s too obvious. We have to be casual. Walk in like customers. Hey, I still own my great aunt Myna’s cottage. I’m almost a real live local girl. And Rocky is from Marblehead. Let us do this our way. We’ll find what we’re looking for.”

  “I don’t have a lot of choice, now do I?” Gary said, an edge in his voice alluding to the influence of the Krewe of Hunters agents. “I’ll be watching things over at the mortuary. We’ll keep in close contact.”

  “I’ll hang out at the mortuary with Gary,” Jenna said. “You guys handle the streets. How’s that?”

  Sam looked back at her, surprised and annoyed. He didn’t like being away from her in Salem. But she was already up, ready to leave with Gary Martin. Sam stood as well, gently laying an arm on her shoulder.

  She smiled at him. “I’ll be fine.”

  He accepted that, just as he accepted who she was, what she did, how they were different, and how they were alike. He loved her. And part of that involved letting her be who she was. But there was still the matter of the boo-hag.

  “Where are we meeting up? And when?” he asked.

  “Last tour at the mortuary is midnight,” Martin said. “We can do it then. The next two days promise to be long. The day before Halloween, then Halloween itself. We need to catch this killer quickly, before this goes any further.”

  * * * *

  Apparently nothing stopped Halloween.

  The Mayberry Mortuary was packed, the parking lot full. Jenna and Martin arrived in a police car, uniformed officers everywhere. Two at the entry, two by the ticket booth, one man watching the parking lot.

  “I can only imagine the overtime,” Jenna said, looking around.

  “We don’t really have a choice. Salem’s economy would be totally in the trash if we had to start closing down things like this. Winter is cold as a witch’s tit! Whoops, sorry. I’m sure that’s politically incorrect now. But you know what I mean. Christmas is great, New Years, Wiccan holidays, we get people then. Summer is a fantastic time with school kids and families. But we can’t lose Halloween. A lot of the locals only survive the off months thanks to what they make at Halloween.”

  “So the overtime is worth it,” Jenna said.

  But she doubted this killer intended to strike in the same place twice.

  Martin used his phone, checking in wit
h headquarters. Jenna paused in the parking lot, staring out over the cemetery, toward the trees and the edge of the forest. She’d volunteered to come with Martin only because she wanted to get back to the cemetery. She wanted the ghost of John Bradbury to come to her. She also wanted to know why she’d seen a boo-hag heading into the trees moments before she found a woman hanged.

  “Still no sign of Tandy Whitehall,” Martin said, hanging up. “Your coworkers are out, and we have officers trying to reach her. But she’s seen the news by now and has to know we’re looking for her. Probably long gone. I’m going in to do a walk-through. You coming?”

  “I’ll hang out here for a bit. I want to watch some of the people coming and going. I’ll be in soon.”

  He left and she headed over to the busy ticket booth. She saw Micah working, but no Naomi Hardy or Jeannette Mackey. A young woman she’d never seen before sat next to Micah.

  “Everything going all right?” she asked, watching him hand out tickets that were available from a pre-sale online.

  He looked over at her. “We’re sold out. But people get in line for cancellations. We’re always crazy, but tonight is extra rushed.”

  Jenna overheard whispers from the crowd, where some of the visitors were commenting on how they could go to the place where the man’s corpse had been hanged.

  “You’re a creep, Joe,” someone said.

  “Come on, creepy is fun. Afterward, we can go in the woods and find where that other corpse was hanging. The witch. Yeah, man, they hanged a witch.”

  Jenna grimaced at the nonsense. “Best of luck,” she told Micah, moving down the porch steps, smiling and excusing herself as she moved through the crowd. Her smile faded as she made her way to the cemetery. She hated not being truthful with Sam. She loved him so much. He’d gone through the FBI Academy just for her, becoming a crack shot and a proficient agent. True, he talked to ghosts, and it wasn’t a bad thing to be a lawyer who could talk to the dead. He seemed to be really worried about the boo-hag.

  She entered the cemetery.

  Most ghosts didn’t roam around, moaning. Ghosts stayed for a reason, mainly to tell the living what happened to them. She’d seen fathers stay for children, mothers for a family, and children in a sad attempt to ease the pain of their parents. She knew ghosts who’d remained for centuries, hoping to see that history was not repeated. And, yes, she’d met a few in cemeteries. But, usually, they preferred being elsewhere. Tonight, however, one was here, following her. She threaded a path through the tombstones, glancing back to see the glow from the mortuary through the trees. If any of the visitors decided to head into the woods tonight, they’d be in for a surprise. The crime scene from the murder earlier was roped off, two officers watching over it. Finally, she stopped, noting a death’s-head on the stone at her feet.

  She turned.

  John Bradbury faced her, still attired in his Puritan dress.

  “We’re truly trying,” she said to him. “Elyssa tried to repeat what you told her. But we’re not sure we understand.”

  He seemed to waver for a moment, gathering strength. Then he managed a weak smile. “I knew you would come. I tried hard to get someone to see, someone to know. It’s not easy. I knew about you from Lexington House.”

  Jenna nodded. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  He was a tall, nice-looking man, big enough that it must not have been easy to get his neck into a noose.

  “I was working. Checking the connections on some of our automated monsters, readjusting the props on the embalming tables. I don’t know where they came from. I just had a sense that someone was behind me.”

  “When you say you don’t know where they came from—did they enter from the house or from the delivery doors? Did you smell something? Was anyone wearing aftershave or cologne? Or as if they hadn’t bathed? Did you see their hands or anything about them?”

  “I felt like I was hit by a bulldozer. I was standing there, then suddenly someone was behind me. I was slammed against one of the props, then I felt the rope go around my neck. They pulled it tight fast. I was struggling with the noose, trying to get it off. Then I was off my feet, being dragged and jerked. I couldn’t really see anything but black. I think they were in costumes. Maybe capes.”

  “Were they wearing masks?”

  “I don’t know. But I never saw their faces. I heard them. The one said something giving ‘dimension to the witch trials’ and the other said ‘to shut up.’ Then the one who’d spoken first said, ‘he’s going to tell someone what we were talking about. The Wiccans, the cultists, the weirdos.’”

  “That was it?” Jenna asked.

  John Bradbury nodded. “They jerked the rope, and my neck snapped. I died. Then I felt like I was drifting, looking on, and I saw people coming through the mortuary. I kept trying to speak, but I realized they didn’t see or hear me.” He paused, smiling wistfully. “I worked with Elyssa. She had a way about her that reminded me of my oldest daughter. But I also felt that she knew things that maybe even she didn’t know she knew. I felt her coming near me. I reached out with my mind. And she must have listened. Everyone else was pretty much just walking by me. She seemed to hear me. So I spoke to her. I then managed to follow her home. But I couldn’t connect with her until the following morning. That was strange. But it happened.”

  “I am so sorry,” Jenna said. “We’re looking for two killers. But, John, I need you to think. Were they men, women?”

  “I don’t know. They were whispering. But you mentioned smells. I remember that it seemed absurd, but it was like I smelled a forest. Flowery, like an autumn breeze.”

  “Anything else?” she asked quietly.

  “I was strangling, dying. And the thing is . . . my kids. They have to know that I didn’t do this to myself. That I would never have left them, no matter how bad things seemed to be.”

  Jenna reached out instinctively, but touched nothing but a chilly breath of air. “They’ll know. I’ll make sure. You do know there was another murder?”

  He nodded. “Gloria Day. I didn’t like her very much.”

  “Did she have a lot of enemies?”

  “On Halloween night, for years, Tandy Whitehall has been throwing a big gala. Gloria arrives in town and lures away half of Tandy’s business. Gloria and I knew one another. We were never friends. She was more a bitch than a witch.”

  He was quiet for a minute. Jenna allowed him the moment of thought. She wondered what she looked like, standing in the graveyard, talking to herself. A number of family tombs were strewn between her and the mortuary, which probably blocked the vision of anyone who might have casually looked this way. The entire scene was vintage Salem at Halloween, complete with the giant old Victorian house, covered with webs and scarecrows and monsters, caught in an eerie glow that barely reached the cemetery.

  “Red,” John Bradbury said.

  She waited.

  “You made me think about that night. What I was feeling and smelling and I suddenly thought about the color red.”

  Jenna heard Sam from earlier with his story of a boo-hag. A body stripped down to muscle, bone, and red blood.

  “Does that mean something?” he asked.

  “I followed someone in a red costume into the forest. A red costume beneath a black cape. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “What you mean…” a new voice said, “is that you followed someone in red and black into the forest, then found Gloria Day, the wretched bitch witch dead?”

  Jenna turned toward the new voice. Female.

  “Really, John?” Gloria Day said. “Bitch witch? How rude. I’m dead, too, you know.”

  The new ghost joined the party, wearing the same Puritan garb in which she’d died, standing with them among the lichen-covered tombstones. She’d been an attractive woman with dark hair, light blue eyes, a heart-shaped face, and a charming smile.

  Gloria looked at Jenna. “You will find out who did this to us. And so help me, dead or alive, Wiccan, Catholic, Budd
hist, whatever, I’ll curse them in a fiery realm of hell where they’ll burn for all eternity.”

  Chapter 7

  “Where would a popular Wiccan head to avoid detection and the press?” Devin pondered, linking arms with both Sam and Rocky.

  “Did you know her?” Sam asked Devin.

  Sam knew that Devin had not started out as an agent. She’d first been an author of children’s books—all based on a witch. She’d grown up in Salem and returned when her Aunt Mina left her a cottage on the outskirts of town. She and Rocky had met when Rocky had come to Salem. The murders they’d solved had traced all the way back to the days when Rocky had been in high school.

  When the dead had first spoken to him.

  Sam was fond of them both and had been glad when they’d become part of the Krewe. All of them were New Englanders from approximately the same area, hard not to share a few local peculiarities. For one, they all had the tendency to overuse the word “wicked.” To a Brit everything tended to be “brilliant.” In New England, things were just “wicked.”

  “I’d say she’s hiding in someone’s house,” Rocky suggested. “The cops have a list of all her followers, so they’ll be going door to door.”

  “Which doesn’t mean much. There are no warrants. She’s not under arrest, only wanted for questioning,” Sam said.