Chapter 51 Jagg
JAGG
The full moon was like a massive spotlight illuminating the town in a silver glow almost as bright as day.
You could feel the electricity in the air.
Although the festival was raging miles away at Devil’s Cove, the town was a buzz of activity.
Cars filled the two-lane roads that were normally vacant past nine o’clock.
Storefronts glowed with life, staying open late to capitalize on the influx of boozy tourists.
Loud music and laughter rang through the humid summer air.
I passed a trio of young women in flowing skirts and tie-dye shirts, wearing crowns on their heads made of twigs and twinkling lights.
Giggling, grabbing onto each other as they stumbled down Main Street.
A duo of cowboys followed a few feet behind.
I passed a patrol car, and another. BSPD was out in full swing, and unless I’d missed something—which at that point wouldn’t surprise me—Darby’s incident had been the only life-or-death emergency so far.
There’d be plenty of DWI’s, drunk and disorderly’s, a few public intoxes, and probably a few indecent exposures but nothing they couldn’t handle.
Little did I know what was coming.
I turned off Main Street onto “Tourist Road,” the same strip where Kenzo Rees had shot Seagrave and where Sunny Harper had pulled off a heist right under my damn nose.
The strip was lined with people of all ages, each storefront lit and decorated with moons and stars, tinkling chimes and hanging trinkets. I noted a few pentagrams, a few other Wiccan symbols. A band played at each end of the street next to food vendors flanked by long lines.
I slowed as I neared the end of the row of shops, imagining Sunny slinking through the shadows on her way to steal the final Cedonia Scroll.
Then, I imagined Seagrave responding to a “suspicious person” call minutes later.
The man had probably just tossed the foil from the ham and cheese sandwich he ate every night while on duty and chugged a Dr. Pepper from the pack he’d always kept stocked in the community fridge before jogging to his car. He shouldn’t have died.
I slowed, visualizing where he’d parked, then, him getting out of the car, walking down the sidewalk, turning into the narrow alleyway that ran next to Mystic Maven’s Art Shop.
I honked at a pair of teens stumbling across the road, then whipped my Jeep into the only open spot. I cut the engine, hopped out, and ignoring a few whistles, I stepped into the alley. A shadow from the building next door stretched across the asphalt, making it difficult to see. I looked around.
There were still many questions about that night. Why had Sunny stolen the scrolls in the first place? Why hadn’t Briana Morgan given up Sunny’s name? What was the connection, or loyalty, there?
I was still missing something right under my nose. I felt it in my gut.
A wave of sparkles across the bricks pulled my attention. I watched Hazel De Ville flick her Open sign to Closed.
I crossed the alley and rapped on the door. Hazel turned, cocked her head, then padded back and pulled open the glass door.
“Hurry, hurry, son, I’m trying to get out of here for the night.”
She quickly closed the door behind me and turned off the lights to the main floor, leaving only a few dangling gold lights above the cash register in the back.
“Headed to the festival?” I followed her across the room.
“Every year. Good for business.” She slid behind the counter and began shutting down her computer. “I make almost half my revenue during the Magic Moon.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “But you’re not going only for business, Ms. De Ville.”
She glanced up and followed my gaze to the hemp bag sitting next to her purse, a wooden voodoo doll peeking out of the top. Exactly like the wooden dolls that had decorated the VooDoo tree at the beginning of this whole mess.
Her eyes narrowed as she looked back at me.
“You going to arrest me, Detective?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“How honest you are with the questions I’m about to ask you. One, how long have you been practicing witchcraft?”
“I don’t practice witchcraft.”
I nodded to the bag. “Your dolls say otherwise.”
She huffed out an annoyed breath, neither impressed nor intimidated by my presence.
“I am Wiccan, Max Jagger. I practice Wicca. Is this illegal?”
“No. But I want to know why you erected a Wiccan shrine on the tree outside Lieutenant Seagrave’s funeral.”
She glanced back at the woven dolls, hesitated a minute, then met my gaze with slitted eyes.
“Fine. You got me. It was me. But the question shouldn’t be why it was outside of the Lieutenant’s funeral, it should be why it was at that tree.”
“I’m not in the mood for riddles, Hazel.”
“Or, for seeing clearly, apparently,” she snapped, growing annoyed with me.
“ The altar—not a shrine—had nothing to do with the Lieutenant, or his death, and everything to do with Lammas, the celebration tonight. But you wouldn’t know that because you only saw what these small-town rednecks told you to see.
Witches are evil. Therefore, the shrine must have to do with death.
Right?” She pulled a doll from her bag. “This is not a voodoo doll, Jagg. It is not evil, or sinister, or black magic. Lammas is one of the four Greater Sabbats in the Wiccan religion. And this year, it just so happens to fall on a full moon. That’s the reason this year’s festival is so huge.
Women and men who practice Wicca have flocked here to celebrate—not to curse. ”
She huffed out a breath. “Listen up, because I’m only going to educate you once and hopefully at least one thing I say will get through that dense brain of yours.
Lammas is a celebration of the first harvest of the year, a time to give thanks for the past and celebrate the future.
It’s the opposite of what you, and everyone else in this town has assumed, Jagg.
These ‘voodoo dolls’ are actually called corn dollies and are used to honor the god Lugh, and in my case, those who have had a positive impact in my life over the last year.
The altar in the park was a symbol of thanks and celebration, Jagg. ”
“Okay, fine, but why the park? Why there? Why not in your backyard?”
“Good question. That tree is sacred to me. It’s where Earl asked me to marry him thirty-four years ago. It’s not the first altar I constructed there—and not the first you’ve missed.”
“Celebration aside, you’d be missing that tree if those candles you’d lit would have caught fire, Hazel. We’re in the middle of a burn ban and one of the hottest heatwaves in history. The grass is like a tinderbox. It wasn’t smart.”
“I was feet away when you walked up. I watched you and Darby the entire time. When he blew out the candles, I left. I wouldn’t have left them burning.
” She paused, staring at me in a way that made me feel like an insolent school kid.
“What other questions can I clear up for you so that you don’t arrest me? ”
“The Black Bandit.”
Something in her eyes flickered.
“You know exactly who the Black Bandit is.”
“Do I?”
“Cut the bullshit, Hazel. You know Arlo and Sunny Harper better than I realized. Tell me why Sunny stole the Cedonia Scrolls.”
“Jagger, listen to me. Hear me, son. Not everything is evil and nefarious with bad intentions. Not everything is bad and the reasons behind things are not always what they seem.”
“Hazel, Sunny broke into your store and stole a very precious piece of art that could have made you a lot of money,” I said, feeling like I needed to drill home the point that she didn’t seem to care about.
“That she did.” A grin tugged at the woman’s lips. Not humor, but pride. “She’s a pistol, that one.”
I slid my palms onto the counter, leaned forward. “Why didn’t you call it in? Why let her get away with it?”
“Why do you assume she’s a thief, detective?”
I pushed off the counter, turned my back, my hands balling to fists. I sucked in a deep breath and spun back around. “Hazel, I don’t have time for this.”
“Yes, you do, Jagg. Yes you do. Look closer…”
Look closer. Those damn words again.
Briana Morgan and now Hazel De Ville.
Look closer…
“Why do you assume she’s a thief?” Hazel repeated, emphasizing each word.
I suddenly stilled, my racing thoughts slamming into one seemingly-impossible concept like a brick wall.
No.
No freaking way.
A smile crossed Hazel’s lips. “There you go. See? Once you stop assuming the worst in people, you see them for what they truly are.”
I blinked, a solid ten seconds ticking by while I wrapped my mind around the earth-shattering thought.
“Say it out loud, Jagg. You know it now. Trust your gut. Say it.”
“Sunny Harper is an art investigator.” The words came out in a whisper, almost as if I was forcing it out.
“Good job, Detective,” she clapped. “Damn, boy, thought I was going to have to spell it out for you. Took a while, but you got there and that’s what counts.”
My stomach rolled. “When? Why? … How?”
Hazel put her hands on the counter and leaned in.
“Normally, I wouldn’t talk about someone else’s business—well, someone that I respect, anyway.
But despite your narrow-minded, cynical view of the world, I like you.
And I like Sunny and I don’t want you to screw this up.
More than you have already, anyway, cause I’m guessin’ you have.
” She pinned me with a disapproving look before continuing.
“Yes, Sunny Harper is a fine art investigator. She works undercover. Undercover, Jagg. I didn’t even know it was her who took the scroll until she came clean earlier today.
She didn’t want to involve me in the whole mess, bless her heart. ”
I ran my fingers through my hair and began pacing. It was not my day.
“How long has she been doing this?”