Chapter Twenty-nine
I slept only five hours that night, but despite the whirlwind chaos of my thoughts, it was a hard sleep. The book on my nightstand was more evidence I would have to work fast: The Perfect Storm .
Beata would not rest until I was silenced. I wasn’t sure precisely what was up her sleeve, but I knew it would have to do with pinning Tyrone’s murder on me. Which meant I had to find his killer first.
My first thought was that Beata was responsible for Tyrone’s death, but almost as quickly as I had the thought, I dismissed it.
Without her full magic, Beata would have had to kill him the way a non-witch would, and she wasn’t physically strong enough to subdue him.
Besides that, Beata was an opportunist. My grandmother’s letter had portrayed her as someone who capitalized on the people and opportunities around her—not someone who instigated them.
The books’ contentment with having Lise among them had morphed to simmering foreboding.
Despite the sun flowing into each room as I pulled open the faded brocade curtains, the library’s mood kept me on edge.
Even Marilyn Wilfred seemed to telegraph alarm from her portrait above the atrium’s entrance.
“Everything okay?” Roz didn’t even lift her fingers from her keyboard as she talked, but she did toss a glance my way.
“So far,” I said. “Want the ceiling vents lifted for a couple of hours?” After lunch, when the sun had traveled farther west, the conservatory would be flooded with sun and heat. Right now, the breeze off the river was cool.
Roz shut her laptop and turned to me. “What do you mean, ‘so far’?”
“Just that.” What else could I say? That my aunt, an evil witch to whom Roz had unknowingly rented her trailer, was on my tail? That the stranger wandering town had a magical sense of smell? That I was being framed for murder?
Her eyes narrowed, and she reached for her fan and flicked it open with the skills of a showgirl at the Moulin Rouge. “What’s happening that I don’t know?”
I shrugged.
“Are they going to throw you in the clink again?”
My shoulders dropped. “I hope not. Why?”
A moment passed, then two. Roz turned to her laptop. “Something is brewing around here, and I have a bad feeling about it. I’m not normally given to intuition, but I have the creeps, big time.”
“Yes,” was all I said.
“You’re not out of woods on the murder rap. Then there’s the follow-up trustees’ meeting. Have you come up with a presentation?”
The trustees’ meeting was the last thing on my mind. What good would it do if I was in jail? I hedged. “I’ll get to it.” I pulled up a chair. “You’re plugged into the grapevine. Is there any word on who killed the man found in the woods?”
“You mean, besides you? Orson’s taking odds at the tavern, and you’re the favorite as the murderer, eight to one.” She turned quickly again to her computer.
“Roz! You didn’t. You put money on me, didn’t you?”
She spoke, eyes on her keyboard. “I’m sure it was self-defense.
Or a moment of passion. It’s not like you’re a natural born murderer.
But look at the evidence: Sam dumps you, Tyrone makes up to you then hits on someone else.
You’ve been seen going to the woods. You were looking for Tyrone the night he died.
What are we supposed to think? All we need is your fingerprints on the murder weapon, and it’s a done deal. ”
I’d thought I couldn’t feel any worse. I was wrong. I was also certain Beata had already come to the same conclusion about the fingerprints. “Has the body been confirmed as Tyrone’s?” I wouldn’t take Beata’s word.
“Dental records match up. Besides, who else could it be?” Roz said. “He’s missing, a body shows up. Two and two make four.”
Beata had been right. Poor Tyrone. He hadn’t deserved this. “What else are they saying?”
“Speculation is that you’re setting Ian up as the murderer. You’re making a big deal about them being from the same town.”
“You’ve got to be joking.” Looking for Ian was what had gotten me into this whole mess.
Emotion stormed in my chest like a hurricane, and I teetered on the edge of sobbing.
Then, strangely, I burst into laughter. I laughed until my torso ached and tears dampened my cheeks. Roz stared at me without comprehension.
“What’s so funny?” Sam stood in the conservatory’s doorway.
My breath stuck in my throat. I’d always found him handsome, but today his early receding hairline and intent gaze pitched even more longing into my heart.
Had I told him how much I loved him when I’d had the chance?
Did he know the hundred ways I appreciated him: his cooking skills, his focused listening, his gentleness with Nicky, his firm sense of right and wrong?
“I just—Roz thinks….” As quickly as laughter had consumed me, now seeing Sam’s distant expression, I wanted to cry. “Can I help you?”
He lifted a clear zip-top bag with something thin and stained red coiled inside. “I found this in the brush out back, on the slope to the river.”
My heart dropped. I had a hunch I knew exactly what it was and what it meant for me. I squeezed my eyes shut.
“What is it?” Roz asked, saving me the trouble.
“A zip tie, the long type found on construction sites. Almost certainly used to strangle Tyrone Beaudrie.” He lowered his arm. My eyes, now open, followed the bag.
“The murder weapon,” I said. So that was how Beata was going to do it. That’s how she’d make sure I was locked away for good.
“I’m sending it to the lab right now.” Sam’s expression was impossible to read, despite the hours I’d spent gazing at it over the past months. “Josie, by tomorrow morning, I’ll have a search warrant.”
I had to find Tyrone’s murderer, and I had to find him now. I opened my mouth to tell Roz I needed to leave, but she beat me to it.
“You go,” she said. “I’ll take care of the library.”
Roz might have expected me to trudge upstairs to pull a quilt over my head and weep. Instead I made my way for the kitchen door and strode down the hill to town. Sam’s SUV was already gone, the zip tie with him. Every minute counted.
I took a left into the Magnolia Rolling Estates. Breathless, I knocked on Ian’s door. Please let him be home , I prayed.
Lalena, her expression stern, appeared behind the screen. “What do you want?”
For a moment, I was taken aback. Then I remembered my conversation with Roz. “You think I murdered Tyrone Beaudrie and am trying to pin it on Ian.”
“I don’t think you murdered anyone.” She looked at her feet. “You wouldn’t do that. But at the café, they’re saying you’re the prime suspect, and you’re looking for somewhere to cast the blame.”
She looked wary but didn’t close the door. I took that as encouragement. “I’m not trying to pin anything on Ian. Please. I need to see him.”
“Let her in,” Ian said. He’d rolled up behind Lalena.
Lalena reluctantly stepped aside.
“Thank you,” I said. “I need to find out who killed Tyrone. Someone is setting me up for it.”
“Have a seat,” Ian said. “Slow down, and tell us what’s on your mind.”
Lalena remained silent.
I looked at them both, then took the couch. Lalena would come around eventually. “Sam found a zip tie in the bushes, and he thinks it’s what was used to kill Tyrone. It’s at the crime lab by now. The thing is….”
“The thing is what?” Ian prompted.
I hated to say it. “The thing is, I think they’ll find my fingerprints on it.
Or something that will incriminate me.” How Beata would pull it off, I didn’t know, but I knew she’d pull it off somehow.
Perhaps she’d collected one of my hairs.
Or—the cup of coffee she’d made me when she’d given me the sheet with my initials and the glyph.
She might have lifted my fingerprints from the mug.
“What makes you so sure?” Lalena asked.
There was no way I could explain it that they would understand. “I’m asking you to believe me.”
Lalena looked at Ian. “Why should I?”
“Lalena, you know me. Am I that sort of person?”
She glanced at the carpet, then disappeared down the hall. When she returned, she held a deck of tarot cards. She closed her eyes and pulled one. Whatever she saw on the card relieved her. “The priestess. Either you’re telling the truth or you’re a witch.” She laughed. “Or both.”
“Ha ha,” I said. If she only knew. “I thought you didn’t believe in tarot cards.”
“It was a tiebreaker,” she replied.
“You think we can help,” Ian said. “How?”
I shook my head. “Maybe Tyrone’s—Byron, as you know him—death is related to his, um”—I glanced at Lalena—“work in Baltimore.”
“She knows,” Ian said. “I explained why I had to leave.” Lalena looped an arm around his shoulders. “Go on.”
“He was some kind of criminal kingpin. Surely he had enemies,” I said. “Maybe one of them followed him here. Maybe it’s someone you’d recognize.”
“It’s possible,” Ian said. “Byron was a bad dude. Really twisted. I don’t know anyone, though, who’d be stupid enough to track him down. Once he was out of their life, they’d leave him be. I know I would.”
A car crunched up the gravel drive that formed the spine of the Magnolia Rolling Estates. Lalena got up to look out the window. “It’s the sheriff’s office. They’re going to my house.” She dropped the curtain and swiveled to face me. “I bet they’re looking for you, Josie.”
That was fast. My heart froze in my chest. The noose was tightening. Somewhere, Beata was laughing.
“They’ll stop here next,” Ian said.
Lalena’s eyes widened. “Josie, hide.”