Witches and Waterways, page 9
“Yeah,” Officer Brendan said. “Greg Palmer.”
As he said the name so casually, AJ assumed that it must be common knowledge who Carla’s boyfriend was, though Seamus hadn’t been able to tell her his name.
“Do you know anything about Greg?” Officer Brendan said.
“Just his PO box,” AJ admitted truthfully.
“Though he’s stayed active on the Milltown app, he hasn’t been in town recently,” Officer Brendan. “We haven’t been able to talk with him in person.”
“Huh,” AJ said. “I would swear that I just saw him at the post office. Skinny young man, long fingers, hair dyed gray with blue streaks?”
“That’s him,” Officer Brendan said. “We might have to go pay another visit to his house if he’s back in town. He told us that he wouldn’t be returning to Milltown for another week.”
“Is he a suspect?” AJ asked.
Officer Brendan narrowed his eyes at her. “You know I’m not supposed to discuss an active case with you,” he said, sounding a little gruff. He sighed, then sat back in his chair. “He has an alibi, but it isn’t air-tight.” He paused, then pointed a finger at her. “And you never heard that from me.”
“Keep poking into this GrayDawn’s background,” AJ said. “I have a feeling about him.”
“Anything you’d like to share?” Officer Brendan said.
AJ shook her head. “Just…Unsettled. You know?”
Officer Brendan shrugged. “I’ll take your word for it. You be careful the next few nights, all right? I don’t want to have to go tell Bea that you got in trouble on my watch.”
“I will be,” AJ said. “And do go look at Greg Palmer again.”
“We will,” Officer Brendan promised.
AJ had to slog her way back to the inn through the rain. She figured it was probably good exercise for her, as her clothes gained twenty pounds of water weight in the continual downpour.
Why did she have such a bad feeling about Greg Palmer? What was it about him that unsettled her so much?
And why did she keep hearing music in the background? Was this just another (joyous) menopause symptom for her to deal with? Was she just going so crazy that now she was hearing things?
AJ felt as though she had more questions than answers.
And that Valentine’s Day was a deadline that she was going to miss.
Chapter Seventeen
After AJ got back to the inn and had dried herself off some, she texted Bea about Greg Palmer as well as the mutilation that had been done to the Valentine’s Day cards she’d been receiving.
Unfortunately, Bea didn’t know anyone by that name. She didn’t even know any Palmers in the area. She promised to do more hunting, though.
The afternoon had a lot of people checking in—seemed that quite a few people came to the coast to spend Valentine’s Day. The inn had offered a romantic weekend getaway package, with time in the bathhouse as well as Payne’s Valentine’s evening meal.
Next year, AJ was going to see if she could talk Lionel into making cookies for her guests as part of the romantic weekend getaway package, giving him a chance to practice his baking and decorating skills.
After the initial flurry of people midafternoon, AJ and Willow found themselves in a lull.
AJ was never certain what to talk about with the younger woman. When she’d been working in business, she’d always found connection points with her developers. But while those people hadn’t necessarily been in competition with her, Willow usually acted as if she and AJ were.
Today, Willow was in her usual man-ish white shirt, black vest, and black pants. She’d shaved the one side of her head recently enough that it was barely stubble, while the other side—done in an ombre of dark red to bright pink—hung down to her shoulder. Her nose ring was plain gold today, though she frequently had some sort of gemstone impaling it. She wore her usual assortment of talismans and stones wrapped around her neck, held there by various leather strips.
“Tell me about the stones you’re wearing today,” AJ said, trying to keep an open mind about Willow’s obsessions.
“This is tiger eye,” Willow said, lifting a large, teardrop shaped stone, colored in brown with golden spots. “It’s to help me find balance between the fire of inspiration and the grounding of the earth.”
“So it’s an artist’s stone?” AJ said, trying to keep the conversation going, to see what else Willow might or might not know about the various rocks she wore.
“Yes, it could be,” Willow said seriously. “Or it could be a transition supporter, if you’re going through some sort of change.”
“What else are you wearing?” AJ said, determined to find some sort of connection.
Willow went through many of her rocks, the snowflake obsidian, the topaz, and the pure quartz that had so little coloration it was like plain glass, talking about the properties of each, what they were used for magically and internally.
“Where did you learn about all of this?” AJ said after a while.
“All over the place,” Willow admitted. “I have several books I could loan you, if you were interested.”
“Thanks,” AJ said sincerely. “I appreciate that. But rocks just aren’t my thing, you know? I prefer water and movement. That flow.”
“Then why ask?” Willow said pointedly. While she’d been animated talking about her necklaces, she abruptly fell back into her sullen self.
“There are many types of magic,” AJ said seriously. “Not everyone is water based, like I am.”
“Oh,” Willow said, as if she hadn’t ever considered that before. “So while you’re water, I might be earth?” She paused for a moment, thinking. “Huh,” she finally said.
“Any insight you want to share?” AJ asked.
“No, just that I think you might be right. I need to stay focused on the earth and her bones, not flitting around with other elements,” Willow said, nodding.
“Yes, exactly,” AJ said.
Willow gave her a considering look. “I know you’re a psychic and all,” she said, waving a dismissive hand. “But I figured you didn’t believe in any of it. That it was just another business for you.”
AJ tilted her head from side to side. “Gladys would make a believer out of anyone.”
Willow snorted. “True. Enough pictures fall from your walls and either you’re living in an earthquake zone or something else is going on.”
“Exactly,” AJ said. She didn’t feel comfortable enough to share anything more with Willow about her magic, to tell her about the visions or pushing around water.
Besides, she still had no idea how much power Willow might have with her chosen element, if any.
“Ursula isn’t earth based either, is she?” Willow asked after a few moments.
“No, she isn’t,” AJ said, wondering where Willow was going with all of this.
“Oh,” Willow said after a few moments of consideration.
A guest came up to the desk just then. AJ took care of them and checked them in while Willow continued to work through whatever it was she was considering.
Finally she said, “That’s why Ursula wouldn’t take me as a student, isn’t it?”
“Yes, exactly,” AJ said, relieved that she wasn’t going to have to say anything about Willow’s lack of actual power. “She isn’t earth based. And you are.”
“That means you can’t teach me either,” Willow concluded with a nod.
“That’s right. I don’t know who can. If there’s anyone,” AJ continued. She didn’t want to send Willow down the path of looking for some kind of “teacher” who would in the end turn out to be even more of a con artist than Carla.
“So we end up teaching ourselves, and possibly never learning our true power,” Willow said after a few moments, more to herself than to AJ.
AJ just shrugged. She, too, would like a teacher, a better mentor than Ursula. Particularly one versed in all the various types of magic in the world.
Did such a person exist? Maybe. Maybe not.
“It’s not like we can put out an ad on the internet or something,” AJ said. “And get anyone who has real power, that is.”
Willow gave her a grimace. “I know that too well,” she said quietly.
AJ heard the heartache barely masked by the young woman.
Someone had taken advantage of her, that was certain.
Still, AJ knew she couldn’t take Willow on as a student. They had different magic.
By the time AJ’s day was over, she felt as if she and Willow had finally come to something of an understanding. While AJ still didn’t know if Willow had any magical power, at least they’d made progress toward figuring out how to work together.
Willow was probably always going to be jealous of AJ, as the young woman had always felt it was her place to be the magical one.
Maybe now, though, she could grow into her own powers, explore what it meant to be earth based, instead of reaching for things that would always be beyond her grasp.
Chapter Eighteen
AJ didn’t have any clients that evening, so she and Bea had made plans earlier to have dinner together in Bea’s vacation home up the hill. Though it was still raining, AJ walked up there from the inn, knowing she could dry herself later.
Bea opened the door almost immediately after AJ knocked.
“Why didn’t you text me that you were on your way?” Bea said angrily as AJ stood just inside the doorway, magically pushing all the water off herself so she was dry again.
“Why would I do that?” AJ said. “We made an agreement to have dinner tonight. When I got off work. Remember?” Had Bea forgotten or something?
“Yes, but that was before you found out that someone was out to get you, sending you mutilated Valentine’s Day cards,” Bea fussed.
“I was perfectly fine,” AJ said. “I was walking in the rain, remember? I could have protected myself if someone tried to grab me off the street.”
Bea was only slightly mollified. “I’ll grant you that, but what if they grabbed you before you had a chance to react? I just—I wouldn’t forgive myself if something happened to you.”
AJ took a deep breath, ready to tell her sister off, then released it.
Bea might be right. Something strange was going on. Someone was obsessed with her. And not in a good way.
“Okay,” AJ said grudgingly. “I’ll try not to be alone for the next couple days. All right?”
“Good, I was hoping you’d say that,” Bea said with a grin. “We need to go to your place and pick up some of your things. You’re spending the night here.”
“What?” AJ said, affronted. “Look, Bea, I appreciate it—”
“What did you just say about not being alone for the next couple of days?” Bea pointed out mercilessly.
“Fine,” AJ huffed. “I’m sure this isn’t necessary, though.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Bea said coyly. “There might be some alcohol involved. And you might not be able to make it home later tonight anyway. You’ll be happy that you agreed to my very sensible plan.”
AJ just rolled her eyes at Bea. “You win. Let’s go to my place, get some of my stuff, then come back here.”
“See? You should always listen to me,” Bea said. Possibly just a little pompously.
AJ shook her head but followed her sister back out into the rain, heading for her car. It didn’t take long after they reached AJ’s place for her to put together an overnight bag. At least no card had been wedged into the door that evening. She wasn’t actually expecting the last one until the big day, tomorrow.
Nothing looked weird or out of place. AJ didn’t have an unsettled sense when she walked in as if someone had been there while she’d been out.
She wished there was some sort of magic that she could use to protect her house. The best she could come up with would be a moat. Some sort of water feature, that maybe someday she could enchant, that would protect her.
Maybe.
AJ refused to be cowed, though, so she spent a little extra time checking things out, making sure that she was as safe as she thought she was in her own house.
Finally, they were on their way back up the hill to Bea’s place. As AJ had spent the first few months of her time in Milltown living in Bea’s guest room, it felt comfortable to her, and she already knew where everything was.
After dinner (a marvelous beef stew that Bea had made was both homey and comforting) and dessert (a decadent chocolate pudding with caramel sauce that AJ had picked up), the sisters sat down in the living room to chat, each with a large glass of wine.
“I know better than to ask this, but is there any chance I could get you to leave Milltown for a while? Just until the police find whoever killed Carla?” Bea started off with.
AJ sighed. “You know I can’t. The police have specifically asked me not to go anywhere. Plus, if the same person who killed Carla is the person who’s been sending me cards, I won’t be their only victim. They’ll move on to someone else if I leave town. I couldn’t live with that.”
“I know,” Bea said, her own sigh much more emotive.
“So do you think it isn’t the boyfriend? This Greg Palmer, or GrayDawn?” Bea said. She continued, on a roll. “We need to figure out who this boyfriend is, what his angle is. Did he believe Carla was a psychic? Is he out to get you because he thinks you’re a fake? I mean, why else poke holes in your eyes?”
AJ just shrugged. She, too, had more questions than answers at this time. “It could be that whoever’s sending the cards thinks I am a psychic. He could be poking holes in the eyes to blind me.”
Bea shivered. “That’s really psycho. And I’m sure it’s going to thrill Fred, who will certainly put it into his next murder mystery.”
AJ nodded.
“Maybe there’s a clue in GrayDawn’s posts,” Bea said. “Let’s spend some time going through them, see if we can catch anything.”
“All right,” AJ said. She didn’t want to get too obsessive herself, but it still sounded like a good plan.
Bea copied out all of GrayDawn’s posts into a file, then printed out two copies, one for AJ and one for herself.
AJ started with the first few posts of GrayDawn, who’d joined the app just after the first of the year. She knew that Carla had set up shop in January. When had Carla actually arrived in Milltown, though?
She sent Lionel a quick text, asking when Carla had first started renting from him.
He replied quickly, letting her know that Carla had signed all the lease papers the previous year, and had gotten the keys on January first.
So Carla had been in Milltown over the holidays. Interesting.
AJ pulled up her phone and found that Carla’s account had been set up on the Milltown App in December.
Had GrayDawn followed her from somewhere else?
There was never anything personal in GrayDawn’s texts. He never posted about his own hobbies or things he’d done. The first week, he was only forwarding Carla’s posts.
It wasn’t until the second week that he started making personal attacks against AJ, accusing her of being a “faux psychic” and calling all of her followers delusional.
AJ hadn’t seen any of these posts. Fortunately, there weren’t many of them. After the first few there were a series of posts that said, “Deleted by Admin.”
Had GrayDawn been saying even worst things about her? And had Jermaine stepped in to stop them?
After that, GrayDawn’s posts were more subtle. He never said anything directly bad about AJ. Instead, they were almost always about Carla, the only “real” psychic in town who could foretell the future.
Why was GrayDawn so adamant that Carla was the real thing? AJ was still convinced that she’d been a con artist.
There were also a few posts from GrayDawn about Carla’s ability to talk with ghosts through her radio. He didn’t appear to think that was as impressive a feat, even though that might have been the only real magic that Carla had.
When AJ started reading those posts, she thought for a moment that she heard a radio again. She looked up sharply, but Bea was still sitting there, going through her own copy of GrayDawn’s posts.
AJ shook her head. She was hearing things. She’d read more than one story about women going crazy from menopause. This must be her own very special brand of it.
By the time AJ finished reading through all of GrayDawn’s posts, she didn’t have any solid conclusions beyond that he was kind of creepy, always following Carla around, posting how she’d had lunch at the Cove and everyone should go there, or shopping at Fred’s store, and the specials they had.
It was only her second time through that she noticed the pattern: he only posted when Carla left her business to go out. He also commented on the times she’d called for food to be delivered. But that was it. As if he was sitting outside her business, stalking her.
That made AJ curious, and she started trolling through Carla’s posts.
At the very start, she’d liked his posts, particularly when he’d started forwarding everything she said.
Those likes stopped after the posts that the admin had deleted. After that, Carla never appeared to interact with GrayDawn.
“You know, I’m getting the feeling that GrayDawn wasn’t so much her boyfriend as her own personal stalker,” AJ said after a bit.
“I gotta say, I agree with you,” Bea said. “But Seamus said GrayDawn was her boyfriend?”
“As did Officer Brendan,” AJ said, nodding slowly. “I wonder if the nature of their relationship had changed and she hadn’t admitted it to anyone.”
“Or she was scared to,” Bea said.
“I’m sure that the police already know all of this, right? That they’ve been looking at these posts?” AJ asked. “Officer Brendan said he was familiar with GrayDawn, and appeared to already know that it was Greg Palmer.”
“Yeah, but there wasn’t anything they could do, not unless Carla had sworn out a complaint or something,” Bea said.
AJ put the papers to the side and finished off her glass of wine. “I wonder what the real relationship was between them.”
