Hexes and X's (Z&C Mysteries, #3) (11 page)

Slobber went silent, breathing heavy, too weak to talk. Then he began again. “I hid in a corner, knocking spiders out of the way. When he went back through the rubber flaps to the first room, I decided to take a look at what he discovered, and that is when I was bit by a big ol’ rattler snake. I didn’t want to say anything, because I’ve been bitten before and didn’t get this sick. I didn’t want anyone to know I was followin’ that there rat, your hypnotizin’ bad boy.” Slobber rolled his head back and closed his eyes.

Judy said urgently, “We don’t have any anti-venom,” and looked at Debbie.

“Actually, we do,” said Zo. “Claire and I passed through all those traps. I found a vial of Cortilaid in a basket in the snake room. It said so right on a tag. I’ll go get it.”

Debbie explained as if embarrassed, “I didn’t see the snake bite on Jack because of the compound fracture and blood, and I thought Slobber had flu or something.”

“Me too,” added Judy. “Let’s get the pants off Slobber and look at his snake bite. I’ll make a potato poultice for both he and Jack. It draws out impurities in the tissues, you know.”

“Isn’t that just an old wives’ tale?” asked Claire.

“Sure. Probably some old wife throwing mashed potatoes at her drunken sick husband,” Judy quipped. “Pants off!”

“Hey, hey, hey. Ladies!” protested Slobber.

“Slobber, Matilda said she found Jack at the bottom of the attic ladder down in the first of the rooms. That is where she said she found him with his broken leg.”

“I was hiding in the passage, having returned from the monster spiders and I saw Jacky-boy could not get back through the door to the beginnin’ room.” Slobber was speaking with closed eyes, an arm across his forehead. “He looked around and…,” he swallowed, “and then he went into a dark jail-like place that knocked him over when the gate come down. It closed on his leg… breaking it, I guess. Right after, the gate went up again when Matilda come through to the room. When her back was turned, I hightailed it back through the opening; but then, the attic door was locked til
l somebody opened the floor door. It was beauty and her Mom. I hid in some shadows, and thankfully their flashlight beam didn’t see me. When the door was shut again, this time it didn’t lock. I guess ’cause no one opened the “on to freedom” second door at that moment. Anyway, that’s all I can say….”

Zo re-entered the
infirmary with the anti-venom, and Debbie filled two syringes, having plenty left over. The mother and daughter returned to the kitchen to pick up their bag of snacks. The house shook from the storm, like when a commuter train speeds by a two-story flop house in Detroit. It thundered along its tracks, as the blaze of its lightning headlamp flashed in fury. With it came a hurricane of ocean waves crashing over the roof. Evening was upon them. The storm would rage on, growing in strength.

Nobody woul
d be leaving the mansion.

FIFTEEN

The two returned to their room for the night. After Claire rehearsed what Slobber told her, she mused, “Matilda’s stories are not all that consistent. Wouldn’t you say, Mom?”

“Disturbingly so. I’m going to ask her what is going on in the morning.”

Zo went in their bathroom to shower up first. Claire changed out of her wet clothes into a dry robe, and waited for her turn. Claire passed the time by walking around, studying all the little things in their suite. After running a finger along an armoire drawer, she came to a corner of the room where a drape hung against a wall; a luxuriously braided cord fell to its side. Claire touched it, and did what felt natural—she pulled it. The drape slid to one side, revealing an old oil painting coated in a layer of dust.

A few minutes later, the shower turned off and Claire could hear her mother working around the sink. “Mom, can you come here a minute?” she called.

Zo came out of the bathroom patting her face with a towel and saw her daughter staring at something in awe. “What is it?”

“Look. Captain Zachariah.”

“Whoa! Who would have figured that?!” Zo marveled at the painting’s powerful beauty. “If that isn’t as close as one gets to an old master, I don’t know what is.”

Zachariah Dread appeared as a handsome older man, with silver-gray in his beard, a full head of hair, and dressed in the formality of the era. He sat in a chair having a Bible opened on his knee. One hand rested across its pages while the other one rested over the arm of a high-back chair. A saying could be discerned in the background’s shadows: “The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.”

“Have you spotted it yet, honey?” asked Zo.

“The flag that hangs with the American flag there in the corner?”

“That would be it—the Jolly Roger.”

They stared at the skull and crossbones on a tattered black cloth in understanding. “Mom, the man was not a scavenger sailor as Matilda said. He was a freaking pirate!”

“Are you sure there is not a more undesirable and rude meaning to that word ‘freaking,’ Claire?”

“Yes, Mom. Little kids say it everywhere.”

“Hah! Like that is a certification of innocence.”

“I’m a grown up woman, Mommy.”

They stood looking at each other a moment, as smiles started creeping across their faces.

Zo returned her attention to the painting. “Oh, look. There is one more point of interest. Go look up Habakkuk chapter two, verse one. There is a verse underlined in red on the page Captain Dread has opened.”

“Well, since I don’t usually carry a Bible with me per se, we will have to look it up in the library tomorrow. I’m sure there must be one there. How about we close this drape, like we found it?!”

“Yeah, I don’t trust anyone either.”

*

Zo had finally fallen asleep, it being the kind of sleep that shuts one in a tight trunk where everything else is locked out. Banging was distant and irritating, not making any sense in the blackout she was under. She found herself being attacked and couldn’t understand why; and then, it was as if senses caught up to realization that Claire was shaking her. Her eyes fluttered open. The banging was loud and immediate. Claire headed for the door as Zo threw her feet out of the covers to the floor, and then reached for her gun.

Claire waited for her mother to come up behind her before she opened the door. Things were happening so fast, it was hard to sort out; but, the shadowed figure at their door was Matilda, who immediately slumped backward to the floor with a thud and most horrific expression. One hand was gripping a knife protruding from her bloody chest. They could tell Matilda wanted to say something, but was unable to, and instead her other hand relaxed open. A large pink pearl rolled out from her fingers. The stare of death looked up from her frozen face.

SIXTEEN

There were two people standing at the bottom of the stairs—Judge Huff and a council woman. “What’s going on?” barked the judge.

“We have a murder,” Zo said. “Please, someone go get Nurse Debbie and Deputy Jones.” More gathered at the bottom of the stairs while the judge made his way up and the council woman ran for the nurse and deputy.

“This puts a whole new face on these proceedings,” said the judge, more to himself.

Soon Deputy Jones came bounding up the stairs, and Debbie was running as fast as she could go with an emergency kit in hand.

The deputy questioned Claire while the nurse looked Matilda over. “She is dead,” Debbie confirmed, who rather sat motionless next to her long-time coven sister. She said with a distant tone, “I have places for the wounded and sick, but I don’t have any place to put the dead.”

Pretty much everyone had gathered, including Cynthia and Pat, who ascended to the upstairs hall. The judge yelled to all, “Even if the storm is over tomorrow and everyone wants to go to a beach, anyone—I say anyone—who leaves this house without my permission, which you won’t get, will be considered the murderer!” He continued, “Take this body of Matilda Dread and wrap it in a blanket and put it in the large canning pantry that I saw. The rest of you go back to bed! And, if you can sleep, I will be amazed. Now get out of here! Deputy, if you see anyone trying to leave, shoot them and take them into custody. In that order! Hear that people? You will be shot if you try to leave!

“Deputy, I presume you have business to take care of now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, get at it!”

Most
of the coven sisters stood around Matilda, some in tears. Eventually, they rolled her up in a blanket and then zipped her into a sleeping bag. Jones asked them if they saw or knew anything that would help explain the murder. They said they didn’t, but Judy offered that Matilda had quirks and secrets that she was certain she didn’t even know about. “Matilda spent a lot of time alone in her bedroom.”

Zo and Claire, along with the deputy, headed down the hallway to the left of the stairway landing; the other direction was the entry to the attic. They didn’t think to ask which of the six rooms would be Matilda’s, so the deputy swiftly opened each door they passed. Voices could be heard halfway down the hall. Soon they were standing in front of the door with audible arguing. “Now that Matilda is dead, those pearls are up for grabs, and I am going to get mine.”

The silky voice of Cynthia followed. “You won’t be able to find those pearls by yourself, darling. We will just lay claim to this house and then take our time to find them, possession being nine-tenths of the law.”

“I am tired of you telling me what to do!”

“Okay, you are on your own. If you are so smart, do it. And in fact, I am tired of your dimwitted arguments with me. Everything I ever told you was for your own good.”

“Yeah? I just look at it as you being a first class bi—”

(Knock, knock, knock.) “Sorry, ladies. Just looking for Matilda’s room.” Deputy Jones had opened the door and stepped in.

“At the end of the hallway,” said Cynthia smoothly, and smiled with lips that invited a kiss.

“I think Cynthia offed the old frump to get her husband and her pearls,” accused Pat.

“You have gone too far, Pat.” The witch looked at her with murder in her eyes.

“Oh, what?! You are going to curse me,
witch
? Everyone knows that speaks of your personality disorder, not any power you pretend to have.”

“Get out! Or shall I throw you out and we will see who has the power, you or me!”

Pat looked a little startled, licked her lips and left.

“I’m so sorry, Deputy. She has been eroding in some kind of persecution complex, mostly about her weight. This argument has been coming on for a while, and with the stress of the storm and all, I guess it was just too much for her.” Cynthia changed her position, throwing a hip out a little, and flipped some hair over her shoulder.

“Come to breakfast, Cynthia,” Zo said around the deputy’s shoulder. “I have something to tell everyone.” The invitation was eyed with a how-dare-you-address-me expression. “I’m going to show everyone the treasure map discovered by me. I think with Matilda dead, the treasure is up for grabs.”

Her expression took on a new respectfully-interested attitude. “I will be there, Ms. Kane.”

When Claire got to speak to her mother discreetly in the hallway, she asked, “What are you thinking?”

“Do we need money? No. And, now there has been a murder. It is safer for us to let everyone in on it. It will be very entertaining, I’m sure. Everyone will have an equal opportunity…, and may the best man or woman win. There are no more heirs.”

“Okay. We still have a mystery to solve, but this time it involves murder. Are we not looking for the treasure anymore?”

“We are. And if we find it, we say where it goes. All’s fair.”

“Okay then, all is fair and fun. Yo ho!”

“Exactly. Sail on!”

SEVENTEEN

Across the hall was Pat’s room. Claire knocked and the door was yanked open with a double-dare look from the irritable woman.

“Please go down and join the others for breakfast, and my mother will be down in a bit to show everyone the treasure map. You’ll all have a chance to find it. There is no more heir, now that Matilda is no longer alive.”

“Everyone?!” She slammed the door in Claire’s face, after which something shattered from within the room. The door jerked open again when the three had turned to continue to Matilda’s room. “And Claire, you city slut! Don’t think I don’t know about you and Slobber!” The door slammed again.

“She is such a lovely maniac. Don’t you think, Mom?”

“Absolutely! If she gelled her hair and patted it down a little, there is no telling what she could accomplish… Spontaneous combustion, for instance.”

They finally found the room that was Matilda’s. They entered with reverence. When something was looked at a little more carefully and up close, it was done with fingertips quietly. “Look, Mom—it
’s Matilda’s journal.” Claire flipped some pages in a book on the bed. “Oh, here is an interesting entry: I called on a mother-daughter team to come in and help me find the pearls. Better them than me. I know what the crazy old lunatic did to keep his treasure safe. So how genius am I?! I get the treasure and don’t have to go through the hexes (traps).”