Southern Belle (14 page)

Mimicking her husband's usual behavior, Sandra leaned back in her chair and kicked her feet up to the desk. "Care to explain what you're rambling on about?"

Max tried to maintain a serious face, but he knew Sandra had the right idea. Something had changed, had eased, in the room. He sat at his desk. "Please. Tell us what's going on. Maybe we can help."

Drummond looked from Sandra to Max. "If anybody can help now, it'd be you two. Before I say anything, though, I ask one favor. Meet me out at Tanglewood Park. I'd rather not talk of this here where I've spent so many years cursed. I'd rather be where this all began."

"Of course," Sandra said. "It's the least we could do."

* * * *

Tanglewood Park contained sprawling acres upon acres of wooded trails, a pool, homes from the 1700s, stables, tennis courts, an arboretum, and even an old locomotive engine. Families loved the place as did wedding and event planners. It also sat far west of the city which meant Max and Sandra had plenty of time in the car.

"Of course?" Max said. "Why would you agree to go all the way out here? We don't have time for this. You should be working on that code."

"Honey, sometimes you've got to give a ghost a little slack. Clearly there's something emotional involved with this woman. You could see how choked up he got. Letting him tell it his own way will make it easier on him."

"I don't care if it's easy for him. He lied to us."

"All the more reason to go to the place that is connected to this strong emotion. He'll be so consumed with the memory, he won't realize how much he's telling us."

"Wait, wait. This is going to be a
strong emotion
for him? Isn't that what we're trying to avoid? Y'know, so he doesn't go evil on us."

Sandra shrugged. "I made a tough call."

"Are you crazy?"

"We need to know what he knows. At this point, I think it's worth the risk. What else are we going to do? Sit around and wait to be murdered like Ernest and Leed?"

Max had nothing else to say. She was right, as usual, and he figured he would be better off planning ahead rather than arguing a moot point. Except that his brain had no plan in mind. He drove in a blank daze, trying to make sense of the numerous bits of information he juggled, but made no progress.

When they reached the park and paid the two dollar fee at the gatehouse, they headed slowly along the narrow drive until they passed the stables. A twelve-year-old girl rode her palomino inside a fenced paddock filled with jumps for her to practice on. Two women, Max guessed her mother and a trainer, watched with tense excitement. As they receded in the rearview mirror, Max marveled at how much he had learned to read off of people's body language.

"Over there," Sandra said, pointing to the open field on the left. They parked and walked over to where Drummond floated, staring at a tree.

"I think she knew," Drummond said as they approached. "I don't know how, but she had to have known that the witch hunters were coming and that they would contact me for local help."

"Who was she?" Max asked.

"Her name was Patricia Welling. I was out here for a friend's wedding, but you know me, I don't like that kind of thing. So, I went for a stroll and wound up around here. I looked over and saw this exquisite woman by this tree. She wore a blue gown and we shared a cigarette. I never asked her what she was doing out there. I assumed she was there for the wedding, too, since she dressed so fancy. Well, we talked and laughed and while I'm not one to share this kind of thing, you should know that we kissed, too. In fact, we began to see each other most every night."

Max looked at the tree so he didn't have to meet Drummond's eye. "When you say that you saw each other, do you mean ..."

"Okay, yes. We were like rabbits. You really don't believe in subtlety, do you?"

"Just trying to be clear."

"I know how this sounds, but the truth is that we had fallen in love. Even looking back at it all, knowing that she had arranged the relationship, I know she loved me. She probably had not intended to fall for me, but it happened."

Sandra laced her fingers between Max's. "Is that when Dr. Ernest showed up?"

"We had two incredible weeks together. The kind of time that changes a man, makes him think about packing it in, giving up a dangerous life, settling down, maybe even some kids. I even turned away cases so I could spend more time with her. For those two weeks, I swear I thought nothing could change. Then I walked into my office one morning and there's this professor from up North with his tales of witch covens and special rituals. He came with two names to follow up on. Jane Bitter and Patricia. I sent him and Leed after Bitter. I figured they'd come up with more information from her and I could avoid having to approach Patricia about any of it. Except right then, I don't know if I recognized it at the time but I know it now, that was the moment a darkness began to form inside me."

"You poor thing," Sandra said.

"Turned out Jane was the real deal. A full witch and part of the coven he and Leed had been hunting down. They destroyed her that night but not before getting her to confess a list of six more members. Right away I saw that Patricia was on the list. We each took two names, and since I had supposedly made contact with Patricia already, they let me have her name. We agreed on a night for the job to be done, and I had two days to figure out if she was really a witch or if Jane Bitter had lied."

As Drummond spoke, Max watched him carefully while trying not to be obvious. Sandra appeared to be lost in the romantic nature of the story which worried Max even more. As his resident ghost expert, he needed her to be looking for any sign that Drummond's story might be turning him.

"The evidence Matt had compiled in a file gave me little to help. In fact, the two days passed quickly, and I still had no idea what to believe." Drummond's fingers curled into fists.

Max said, "This is a painful memory. Why don't we take a break, let us process everything you've said, and then we'll come back —"

"No." Drummond barked. "I've got to get this out."

Sandra looked to Max, lines of worry creasing her forehead.

"The night came and I had decided to deal with the other witch first. I guess I wanted to avoid the whole thing as long as possible, as if maybe some savior would come in and make that horrible night disappear. I went to the home of Joanna Lee. She lived in a small house on First Street, and I remember thinking that I'd have to be careful about the neighbors hearing anything."

With a sour chuckle, Drummond moved across the field toward the car. Max wanted to be hopeful that this meant Drummond had calmed down, but the ghosts stern expression left little room for such hopes.

"I walked in there, and she had been waiting. She attacked me with a carving knife. I don't like hurting women, but in this case, I had no choice. She would've sliced me up, if I had let her. So I fought back, and despite her yelling some foul things, her biting and random kicking, I managed to subdue her long enough to tie up her feet and get her hands behind her back. Then I had to do the cursing ritual.

"I drew a circle around her with salt and a pulled out an ivory knife that Matt had given me. With it, I had to carve three symbols into her back, deep enough to hit bone. She screamed as I did this, tears soaking the floor. She wanted to wriggle away but the cuts were so deep that movement only caused her more and more pain. And I suspect that she held on to the hope that whatever curse I inflicted on her did not involve her death. But she was wrong. When I finished the last symbol, I grabbed her hair and pulled back her head, and with that ivory knife, I slit her throat."

They had reached the car, and Max opened the back door for Drummond. "I'm sorry you had to go through that."

"It got worse. She didn't die. She bled and sputtered, but she didn't die. She wrenched her head around to see me, and I've never seen such a tormented face. Blood pouring out of her neck, down her chest, and her eyes blazing at me in pain and hatred. I didn't know why she was still alive, and I had no clue what to do. This was long before cellphones. I had no way to contact anybody quickly. At least, nobody I wanted to contact. With all the noise we had made and that she continued to make, I figured the police would be showing up any second." Drummond glanced at Max. "Close that damn door. I'm not a fragile little thing you need to escort around."

Max closed the door and tried not to show his fear.

"Sorry," Drummond said, but he maintained his intense expression. "Please, let me finish this." He looked back the way they had come. "Blood poured out of her, more than I ever thought a body could hold, but it pooled inside the circle. No matter how saturated the salt became, that curse kept all of her contained. And then I saw it. The middle symbol, the one that cut deepest into her spine, I had missed putting in two lines. I shoved her over and tried to correct the mistake, but she fought back hard. It was all that much harder because I had to make sure not to disturb the salt. I managed to get through it, though, and the second I finished the symbol, she dropped dead. I followed the rest of Matt's instructions, burying the body, covering it with salt, and a page with more symbols that Matt had written for me.

"I spent an hour walking the downtown area — drinking. I'd seen some strange things before that, but nothing so horrifying. I really didn't know if I could do it again, much less to Patricia. After awhile, I ended up at her doorstep. I don't recall what we said, but I think she knew why I had come. She also knew she could change my mind with a kiss. That kiss — that's when I knew without a doubt that she loved me.

"We spent the night together. The most passionate night of my life. Everything we had become together poured out of us, pooled around us, in a desperate, tragic embrace. But then the morning came, and I could only think one thing — the only reason she could possibly have known of the coming tragedy between us was if she had been a witch all along. Otherwise, she would be asking me why I was so intense. What was wrong? Anything like that. But she hadn't. She knew exactly what was wrong because her coven sisters had died that night.

"Knowing that she was a witch didn't make it any easier. But it did strengthen my resolve, because if I didn't finish the job, the otherworldly revenge would be ghastly. See, we weren't just killing them. That's what we should have done. But Matt and Leed convinced me that cursing them would be better. Maybe that's why the universe saw fit to curse me later." Drummond pointed to the car door. "Just because I'm a ghost doesn't mean you can't be polite. Open the door."

Max frowned but a warning look from Sandra kept him quiet. He opened the door for Drummond and then got behind the wheel. "Back to the office?"

"Not yet. I haven't finished the story."

"Then where?"

"Get on 40 East. Back into the city."

As Max drove, Drummond continued his tale. He spoke with such vivid detail, Max had no trouble picturing the scene. Drummond stayed in bed as the morning sun broke through the drab curtains. He listened to Patricia taking a shower as his thoughts tumbled over each other. There had to be a way out of this — some loophole that would both destroy the coven yet somehow let Patricia remain alive and his.

He slid out of bed and into his clothes. The ivory knife weighed heavy in his coat pocket. Magic. Why did people mess with it? In all his time spent dealing with the supernatural, he had yet to find anybody who had benefited from using magic. Then again, there was one way he could stay with Patricia — join her. Leave this world of violence and sadness and join the coven, learn the dark arts, become a husband far beyond anything she could have expected.

"I was seriously tempted," he said before pointing toward an exit. "Take Peters Creek Parkway up into the city. Stay on it for a bit."

Max followed the directions even as Drummond dropped back into the heart of his story. He had been standing in Patricia's bedroom, not moving, just thinking. He wanted nothing more than to throw off his clothes, rush into that shower with her, and forget the world. And why shouldn't he? Because he thought she might have been expecting him? Because she might be this witch? It didn't make sense. He had followed Ernest and Leed blindly and now he contemplated a torturous death for the woman he loved.

He reached up to his shirt and began unbuttoning. She deserved better from him than what he had given. That kiss had said it all.

The bathroom door opened. Patricia stood in the doorway wearing nothing at all, one arm stretched along the frame, the other behind her back.. She smiled at him and his heart skipped. From behind her back, she pulled out the ivory knife and her smile fell.

Drummond's hand reached into his coat pocket — a flashlight. She had switched them at some point. He looked up at her. "It's true, then?"

"Don't do this to me," she said, her voice soothing and at odds with the tension in her grip. "Whatever you think I am, I'm not."

"Then how do you know what I'm going to do?"

"Because I love you, and when you love someone, you take an interest in what they do. I know the kind of cases you specialize in. A weapon like this — it can't have any good purpose. You've been hiding it since last night. First time you ever refused to let me take your coat."