Chapter Thirty-Four
Thirty-Four
I was sipping a terrible cup of police station coffee when Rich came bursting through the door and made an immediate beeline in my direction, like a homing pigeon who had just found its destination.
Though I was physically unharmed—Connor’s initial swing with the iron had missed me completely—I had still been checked over by an EMT on arrival at the station, and they had insisted on draping a drab gray blanket around me just to keep any late-onset shock at bay.
At the moment I was doing okay, but I would have killed for a nice cup of chamomile right about now instead of the burnt leavings of an early-evening cup of joe that had been in the pot for heaven only knew how long.
“Are you okay?” Rich asked breathlessly. He crouched down in front of me, his hands and eyes doing a thorough search of my visible person to make sure I wasn’t missing any limbs.
“I don’t know. That really depends on whether or not you brought a latte with you, because this is awful.” I lifted my coffee mug to show him, and then despite my complaints, I took a big sip. My face contorted miserably.
“What happened?” He pulled up a chair from a nearby desk. Even though we were in the middle of a police station and the alleged killer in a recent double homicide was a few feet away in the janitorial/interrogation room, the main floor of the station was quiet.
The rain had let up outside, and the muted shades of an attempted sunset were coming in through the window, painting the floor a pastel shade of orange. I went to take another sip of coffee, but Rich saved me from myself, taking the cup from my hands and putting it on a nearby desk, where I wouldn’t try to habitually grab for it.
“Thank you,” I said. Pulling my itchy blanket around me, I tried my best to explain what had happened after he’d left me at Dierdre’s office. The fake lawyer, the attack at home, and even the full gory details of my magic use. Rich knew I was a witch, but he still seemed surprised as I walked him through lifting Connor up into the rafters.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” he said with a hushed tone.
“Neither did I.”
I hadn’t really had much of an opportunity to think about the incredible magic I had done tonight. I had completely reimagined the way I used one of my most powerful magical gifts, and in doing so, it seemed I had become a better witch, or at least a more controlled one.
And while I had nothing to prove it yet, I also felt absolutely certain that the spell I had pulled off tonight was more than enough magical energy to count as the spell Eudora had hinted at in my vision. There might be too much adrenaline in my system at the moment for me to know for sure, but once I slept for three straight days, I was sure my bouts of accidentally levitating objects were behind me.
I hoped.
When I was done explaining the bizarre happenings of my afternoon to Rich, he sat back in his chair and let out a low whistle. “I think it’s official. I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”
I smiled and was about to speak when Detective Martin pulled up a chair and invited herself to join us. “If you think that is going to somehow keep her out of getting into this much trouble, you have got another think coming, my friend.”
“Is he talking?” I asked, looking over my shoulder to the closed room like I might suddenly have developed x-ray vision. Unfortunately—or probably fortunately—I had not.
“Zipped his lip and lawyered up real quick, unfortunately.”
“Does he know where Melody and Deacon are?” Now that I knew they weren’t our killers, it was bothering me that neither of them had shown their faces. Deacon, it seemed, had been just under our noses at the B and B, but no one had seen Melody in days, and I was starting to get the notion that Connor might have a third victim out there just waiting for us to find her.
“No, he hasn’t said a single word beyond lawyer . Well, other than to insist we should be charging you for assault.” A little grin ticked at the corner of her mouth.
“Okay, can we talk about that for a second?” I lowered my voice because of just how quiet the police station was.
“If you’re worried about it, we’re not planning to charge you with anything.”
“That’s not really what I meant.”
“I know what you meant, Phoebe.”
I waited for her to say more, but when she didn’t, I looked between her and Rich and made a wtf gesture.
“We should probably just tell her,” Rich said. “I think at this point it would be silly to keep it from her.”
Detective Martin scratched her chin, thinking about this for a second before giving a nod, more to herself than to Rich. “It’s obvious by now that you’ve realized the powers you have . . . you weren’t the only person in your family to have them, right?”
I wasn’t sure if I should avoid the w-word, but since they had walked in on me making someone float, I didn’t think semantics were really my biggest concern here. “I know that Eudora was also a witch, yes.” I wasn’t going to mention anything about any other witches in town, because I wasn’t about to out my friends if their secrets were still their own. Honey didn’t need the police department in her business.
“So, the thing is . . . when I suggested you keep your ears open in relation to the case, I was trying to figure out if you and your aunt had more in common than just a cat and a tea store, if you get my drift.”
“You were hoping I’d use my magic to help solve the case?”
Martin gave a half-shrug Can you blame me? gesture. “Eudora would sometimes come in and help us with difficult cases from time to time. She was uniquely gifted, especially with finding missing things. I can’t say we had a lot of murders to investigate back in her day, but what I did learn was that Eudora could get people to admit to just about anything if she had fifteen minutes and a pot of tea.”
I knew precisely which tea it was, too, as I had accidentally used it a little too well once. Martin might not be aware that it was the tea and not Eudora who had been working the magic, but I supposed that in a sense, it was Eudora’s gift for infusing her tea blends that made the Truth Be Told tea work as well as it did.
“So you had a witch on retainer.”
“In a manner of speaking, though of course Eudora’s efforts were all volunteer based. Whenever we would run into a situation where the normal path of the law was hitting a wall, she could usually . . . help us around that wall, if you know what I mean. When I asked you after Sebastian’s murder to let me know if you saw or heard anything, I was hoping that you might be doing what she did, just in your own way. Well, I think we can agree that your way is a little riskier than hers. A lesson I’ve learned the hard way.”
“If you had told me that’s what you were doing . . .”
Her stern expression cut me off. “Be real with me, Phoebe. You aren’t the type to just sit at home and look in a crystal ball or pull out tarot cards or, I don’t know, read tea leaves. You say you’ll stay out of trouble, but you can’t seem to help yourself from becoming a magnet for it. I wish you would do what your aunt did, because I never had to warn her off from crime scenes or ask her not to interrogate witnesses on her own. You and your aunt have a lot in common, but this last week has confirmed for me that you are very different people.”
Rich was smiling, but the smirk vanished when Martin looked at him. “And you knew this whole time what she could do and didn’t bother to let us know. Don’t think I’ll forget that, Richard. You were on the force when we worked with Eudora Black. If you had known we had another witch around, especially one with powers like hers, you should have told us.”
Rich shook his head firmly. “Eudora asked me not to.”
That was a bomb-drop of epic proportions. “What?” I asked. “Eudora talked to you about this?”
“Of course. When she asked me to watch out for you, she explained that your powers were going to be new to you, if they emerged at all, and that you were going to need time to figure things out. If your powers didn’t show up, then fine, you go on and live a normal magic-free life, no harm, no foul. But if they did come in, she wanted me to make sure you had the time and distance you needed to figure out you were a witch and how you could use your gifts. Telling the police department wasn’t going to be helpful to you in that regard. How could you figure out what you were doing if you were being asked to use magic to solve every other crime in town?”
I’d known that Eudora had asked Rich and Leo to look out for me after she passed, but I hadn’t realized the extent to which she had told Rich about my potential abilities before even letting me know about them. I was hurt that she’d trusted him more with the information than me, but I supposed it had been a way to protect both me and her in case I didn’t have magic.
“Based on what I saw tonight, I’d say Phoebe has figured out her magic just fine. I had no idea that sort of thing was even possible.” Detective Martin shook her head. “Where did you learn to do that?”
“I didn’t. That was the first time I’d ever done something like that.” I didn’t explain all my accidental levitations, because I was being honest. This was the first time I had intentionally made something float.
“It’s pretty darned impressive. Spooky, but impressive.”
It wasn’t the best compliment I’d ever received, but I chose to take it as one.
“Phoebe, I have an idea, and it’s not really aboveboard by police standards, but if we wait for this guy’s lawyer to show up, I have a feeling we’re going to have at least one more body on our hands, if you know what I mean.”
“Melody?”
“Melody. I think he’s done something to her, and I want him to confess to it, but he’s not talking and nothing we say to him has moved the needle. He just keeps asking for a lawyer. Now, I can’t let you into that room, as much as I’d like to, but there is nothing we say that’s scaring him, and the only thing I know of that would spook him into talking is you.”
“Detective Martin, that’s not exactly ethical, is it?” I was mostly just teasing her. Connor had killed two people already, possibly one more, and if I could do something to help save a life or solve this crime, then I was game. “Tell me what I need to do.”
“I just want you to stand outside the door where he can see you so when I go back inside, he gets one really good look at you, that’s all.”
And so, when she opened the door, all Connor could see when he got a quick glimpse of the outside world was me, standing between the desks, staring at him with the intensity of a post-prom Carrie.
“I’ll talk,” he said as the door slowly closed. “But you keep her away from me.”