Waking Up Wicked Page 4

  I’ll handle Earl.

  Great. I wondered if I was going to have to tell the police that one.

  Chapter 5

  knowing your rights

  The large vinyl sign on the converted garage had been taken down, and a smaller sign on the garage door said “closed,” so I walked along the stone walkway, past the water fountain to the front door. I glanced over at Earl’s, and shivered. The police were busy taking pictures and dusting for fingerprints.

  I knocked on my aunt’s front door. It took George way too long to answer, even though I was pounding. When I finally got in, I saw why. My aunt’s eyes were swollen like she’d been crying, and, unlike me, that woman never cried. Her face looked pale and strange without coats of makeup. Smaller somehow, sickly. She was on the sofa next to Helena and Flootie, wringing her hands together.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Just cause I wanted to kill the guy doesn’t mean I did it,” she blurted out like someone had asked her that.

  “No one’s accused you, have they?” I asked.

  “Only the whole town,” Helena said like San Diego was just a small town, and gossip could ruin you. “Her goose is as good as cooked. That nosy neighbor, the one in the pale yellow house who walks around just so she can listen in on things, told the press she heard Mabel say she was going to put a death spell on Earl. She heard a lot of things, apparently.”

  “You mean Tracey?” I asked.

  “Doesn’t surprise me at all that she knows her name. Like two peas in a pod, those two,” Helena added. “I told you not to hire Marcie. Bad things would happen. Negative energy. Nobody listened.”

  “I met the woman today on the way over,” I said.

  “You didn’t say anything to her, did you?” Flootie asked, her grandmotherly voice quivered.

  I shook my head no. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure, though.

  “Good. Don’t,” Helena said. “Everything you say to that woman can and will be used against your aunt in a court of law. Stay away from her.”

  “The police can’t have anything on my aunt, just because some weird neighbor heard something about a death spell,” I said. “So stop worrying. He didn’t die from a spell. Someone shot him. And it’s not like they’ll find your fingerprints in his house.”

  My aunt didn’t say anything. She just bit her lip and squeezed one hand into the other. She looked very different without makeup. More tired, but nicer. Like my mother.

  And just like that, I flashed back to the hospital, my mother, frail and bald, sitting up in her bed, covered in blankets, demanding we play cards like we used to even though I knew she was too tired to enjoy herself. The awful smell of disinfectant pouring out from every wall.

  If my mom were here, she’d know what to do. She always knew what to do.

  I tried to throw a reassuring smile at my aunt, but I wasn’t my mom. I wasn’t convincing. And all the while I wondered if I was going to have to divulge some stuff to the police that I didn’t want to admit, like the “I’ll handle Earl” quote or the fact I, too, heard her threaten to put a death spell on the awful man.

  “And doesn’t your aunt have mob connections?” they’ll ask.

  “Oh yes,” I’ll answer. “But those are actually just friends of her second ex-husband’s. He’s an alleged mafia lawyer. I’m sure she only sees them at certain parties now. Did I mention her fourth husband’s family still thinks his death was suspicious…”

  Yep, that woman was going down.

  “We need to keep our story straight,” Helena said. “Nobody but the crazy neighbor in the pale yellow house heard Mabel threaten the guy. Got it?” She looked around at us with mafia eyes.

  I ignored her. My aunt wasn’t guilty and everyone knew it. I sat down next to her and grabbed one of her hands. It was pink from the wringing session they’d been in. “They’re not going to think you did it. From what I’ve heard, Earl was a jerk and probably half the world threatened him with death spells.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Don’t worry,” George said, walking over to answer it. “Whoever it is, I’ll tell them we’re closed.”

  He peeked through the peephole and gasped. Then, after sucking in an enormous breath and allowing his shoulders to soften like he was preparing himself for opening night, he opened the door. Two police officers stood on the other side, flashing badges as if their dark blue uniforms and holsters weren’t proof enough of who they were.

  “We’re looking for a Mabel Pierce.”

  Aunt Mabel stood up and went to the door. “Yes.”

  “We’d like to ask you a few questions about the death of your neighbor, Earl Higgins. Some of your neighbors heard a scuffle coming from your house yesterday afternoon.”

  “I’ll say there was a scuffle,” George said. “But it was Earl. He came over swinging a baseball bat like a crazy man, breaking a lamp…”

  The taller of the police officers interrupted him. “If you don’t mind, we’d like to get an official statement from you, Ms. Pierce, down at the station.”

  “Am I a suspect?”

  The officer smiled reassuringly while the other one scowled suspiciously, and I instantly recognized their procedure. It was the good-cop-bad-cop thing. I thought they only did that on TV.

  “We don’t have a list of suspects yet, ma’am. We’re just trying to find out what happened.”

  “Yeah right,” George said. “Sorry, but we know our rights around here. She’s not going anywhere and she’s not talking to anyone without a lawyer present.”

  The bad cop’s eyebrows raised. “Only guilty people ask for lawyers.”

  “Or smart ones,” George said, still holding the door. “Are we free to go?”

  “Just a couple questions,” the good cop said. “Where were you last night? Someone said they saw you at your neighbor’s house.”

  “What? Who said that? Was it that lady Tracey in the yellow house? She lies, you know,” my aunt said, holding the tissue up to her eyes. “I… I was out shopping and then I was here, and… I’m not answering these things…”

  George cut her off. “That’s right, because she’s not answering any questions unless she has a lawyer present. Is anyone here being detained?”

  “No.”

  “Then we’re free to go. Good-bye, gentlemen.” George closed the door so hard the picture of Aunt Mabel’s dead husband jumped off the wall and smacked him on the shoulder.

  The shorter cop yelled as the door was closing, “I suggest you get a lawyer soon. We’ll be back.”

  George locked the door and plopped himself on the sofa. “Is it late enough to start drinking? Because I need a vodka and cranberry.”

  “Wow, George,” I said. “I’m impressed. If I ever get into trouble, I hope you’re around.”

  George laughed. “If there’s one thing I learned from having a brother who’s an evil lawyer, always, always invoke your right to shut up.”

  “It doesn’t matter, anyway,” my aunt said from behind her tissue. “We’re ruined.”

  “We’re not ruined,” Helena interrupted. “We just started making serious bank. We can’t be ruined.”

  “Don’t I wish we weren’t ruined.” My aunt pushed her lips together. “But apparently everyone from here to downtown heard me say I was going to conjure up a death spell for Earl. I was just talking out my butt, though, like normal.”

  “Because death spells and death potions are not real,” George added. “It goes against every principle witchcraft was built on, and nobody does them.”

  Aunt Mabel turned to George. “We’ve declared ourselves witches. That’s all they know. Who’s gonna trust our business, or me, anymore now that they think I might conjure up a death spell anytime anyone gets on my nerves? Me and my big mouth.”

  Helena stood up. “Well, it was a good run while it lasted. That business almost made it a full six months.”

  Flootie shushed her. “Stop making Mabel worried. We will figure this out. All we need is some good publicity and a good lawyer.”

  “Maybe you could ask your brother for help,” I said to George.

  “No!” He shot back so fast his perfectly styled hair moved. “I think I speak for Mabel when I say she would rather rot in prison. Isn’t that right, Mabel?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “It was hard enough to have a five-second conversation with the man to help the matchmaking club. He only cares about himself,” George went on.

  “I only wonder why someone said you went to Earl’s last night when you didn’t,” I said, putting my arm around my aunt. “I’m going to head over to that nosy neighbor’s. Find out what she claims to have seen last night.”

  Everyone gasped at once, like no one trusted me to do anything right. But then, I was kind of known as the mess-up in my family. The one who didn’t go to college right away. The one who worked awful minimum-wage jobs even after she got her degree because she chose a dumb major for a middle-aged person. Journalism was for energetic younger people who could run after the news morning and night, without getting winded or worried that their gray hair had peeked out from behind its six coats of mascara.

  “Honey,” my aunt said with the kind of calm voice the cops used to talk down a jumper. “Do you think going over to Tracey’s is a good idea? You could make things worse. You know that woman likes to talk to the police and the news.”

  “I can do it,” I said. But more importantly, for some odd reason, I knew I had to do it. It was almost like I was drawn to it.

  Chapter 6

  Just Don’t say anything

  George told me to go home early, but begged me not to talk to anyone on my way out to my car. Not the police. Not the press. Not the neighbors. He let his voice rise on
that last part. I knew no one wanted me to go to the pale yellow house.

  I looked around Morland View Estates as I walked to my car, telling myself there was no way I was going to talk to Tracey.

  A man in a large brimmed hat pruned his roses. A woman in an expensive suit hopped out of her Mercedes, face glued to her phone. My aunt and I were very different from these people. I saw it in that one police officer’s eyes. He’d already decided he’d spotted the bad fruit that didn’t belong. People thought that way about me too. It was why George had told me not to talk to anyone.

  I looked up from my thoughts, a pale yellow house stood in front of me.

  I marched up to the front porch and raised my fist over the door, then turned to walk away. Flip-flop lady opened it before I had a chance.

  “Hello, Marcie,” she said.

  I looked down at my ballet flats, digging a heel into the straw welcome mat under my feet. I didn’t think I told this woman my name. She must’ve asked someone.

  “Hi,” I said, kicking myself for not coming up with a lie, or a script, or something. Anything. “My aunt’s all shook up about what happened to her neighbor. This is a great neighborhood and these things don’t happen here. Everyone even waters their lawn here. You all care about the neighborhood and you keep your property values up.”

  Tracey nodded enthusiastically. “So many people don’t care about that anymore. Climate change, they say.”

  “She trusts you, so I told her I’d come to see what all you knew about what happened.”

  It wasn’t technically a lie. But, like Earl, this woman had to know my aunt couldn’t stand her. If she flipped me the bird and shoved me off her porch, I honestly wouldn’t blame her.

  She pulled me inside. A little black wiener dog scurried in from the other room and yapped at my leg.

  “Bootsie, no,” she said, scooping him up and offering me some tea.

  I looked around. It was surprisingly clean, so clean it even needed prop-crap to jazz it up a bit. A pair of antique round-lens spectacles sat strategically on a doily placed on a bookshelf, a vintage box camera sat on a tripod next to a large marble globe in the foyer. Nobody used any of this crap. I was sorry, but I had enough crap laying around to where I didn’t need to buy prop-crap for decoration.

  I sat down in front of a glass table that looked like it had just been wiped. A couple orange candles were placed around a gorgeous glass pumpkin to let everyone know it was fall.

  And I instantly felt deceived. I liked to think of myself as a good judge of character, and I thought Tracey was a lot like me with messy hair, flip flops, and stretchy pants. Turns out, she was a closet Martha Stewart the whole time.

  “So that was crazy today, huh?” I said, casually sipping the tea she gave me, my mouth puckering with the overpowering lemon flavor. “Did you have to spend all morning talking to the news and the police?”

  She crossed her thick legs, mindlessly pulling the end of her stretchy shorts over her thigh while nuzzling her dog. “Yes, that was crazy,” she said. “I never even heard a gun shot last night, nothing. Nobody did. I asked around.”

  “That’s scary,” I said.

  “Yes.” She looked down at her iced tea, running a finger along the rim. “I saw your aunt going over to his house last night. I told the police about it. They asked me not to mention anything to the news, though.”

  “They came by and told us,” I said. “It’s the real reason I’m here. I just have to ask. Are you sure it was my aunt? She said she never went there.”

  “Positive.” She nodded. “I was just taking Bootsie out for a walk around the neighborhood, minding my own business when I heard your aunt’s voice. This was about 9:30 or ten, mind you. Not too late, but too late to be visiting an elderly neighbor, in my opinion. They were yelling at each other something fierce. She told him never to come by her house again or he would regret it. Then, she reached up and pulled his hair. I know because Earl yelled at her, told her she was a crazy witch. She walked away and I’m pretty sure she saw me. She looked right at me then put her head down and kept on walking.”

  I tried not to let my eyes bug out. “Interesting. And you’re sure it was her.”

  “How many times do I have to say, ‘yes?’ It was her. I saw her face, heard her voice. She was the last person to see Earl alive. Or technically, we both were, I guess. I saw him too.” She nuzzled her dog’s nose against her own. “Me and my Boot-boot. Isn’t that right, Bootsie?”

  The dog licked her nose like he knew the routine. She went on. “He was found this morning by the poor woman from his church who’d been bringing him casseroles every week since he and Judith divorced.”

  “That’s a lot of casseroles. No one gave me squat when I divorced.”

  “Me either.” Tracey winked. “But then I think this woman was on the prowl for Earl.”

  I tried not to look sick.

  Tracey didn’t notice anyway. “Yeah, I heard she was so startled to find him dead, she dropped the whole dish right on his face. On his face. He was covered in baked ziti.” She shook her head like she couldn’t imagine anything worse. “I heard it looked like a noodle facial, can you imagine? Smothered in it. Anyway, I hope I didn’t get Mabel into trouble today. I’m one of the few neighbors who actually likes her. You know, even though she’s a witch. A lot of people are afraid of witches. Not me.”

  “And she likes you too,” I said, like that was convincing. “Was seeing her at Earl’s the only thing you mentioned to the police?”

  Tracey put the dog down on her dark gray rug and stared at the ceiling like she was thinking about it. “I may also have mentioned how she was a witch who hated Earl from the get-go. About her alleged ‘mafia friends…’ Of course, that could all just be a rumor. And, the fight I heard yesterday afternoon at her house when she said she was going to put a death spell on Earl. You already know about that, though. Whole neighborhood heard it.”

  I tried to be pleasant, even though Tracey was quickly becoming a hard person to be pleasant around. I set my tea down on the jack-o-lantern coaster she’d given me moments before, and forced a smile. “Yeah, I was there for that fight. Earl was very upset that my aunt set his ex-wife up with a hottie.”

  “A hottie? Does every woman get one of those at the matchmaker club?” She giggled. “I did see Judith with a very attractive man…”

  I didn’t answer. “So you told the police about Earl flipping out yesterday. Anything else?”

  Tracey looked down at her flip-flops. “Just that Earl was trying to put your aunt out of business. He’d been talking about nothing else for the last couple of weeks. He called it ‘the neighborhood sex club.’ I’m sorry. I know the police came over to Mabel’s house after I showed them exactly where she lived, but I thought they should know.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it. They asked her a few questions. They said she wasn’t a suspect.”

  Tracey looked relieved. “Oh good, I didn’t think your aunt could kill someone. If you want to know the truth, I think that ex-wife of Earl’s might’ve had something to do with it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, Judith and Earl were married for seven years. Come on. She’s a lot younger than the man, let’s be honest. Beautiful too. Beautiful women don’t marry old men without a million reasons, if you know what I mean. I think she was hoping to get lucky like your aunt did, and have the old guy keel over while they were married, leave her with everything…”

  “Oh-kay. So instead she divorced him, got nothing, and then killed him? That doesn’t add up.”

  “Rage. Unbridled rage,” she said.

  I tried to look unfamiliar with the concept.

  She went on. “That woman had to be pretty angry. I’d be angry too if I spent seven years with an evil old fart like Earl and didn’t get a dime out of the divorce. Can you imagine? I spent twenty years with my husband, and if I had nothing to show for it, I’d be ready to kill.”

  I thought about my own divorce. “What’d you get?” I asked.

  She laughed. “Same as everyone. One of the houses and a nice settlement. I mean, it wasn’t much, but it was enough for me to quit my teaching job and start my own company. Yep, I took that money and invested in myself…”