The toxicology results came back negative. Without evidence to the contrary, Doc Merriweather classified the death as heart failure from undetermined natural causes, and the department heaved a sigh of relief.
Within forty-eight hours, the task force rounded up the rest of the black magic coven, including four council members: Dawn, Amanda, Charlotte, and Mary T, plus the intended Masquerade Ball contest winner, Maureen Lacey. During their questioning, Amanda was the first to confirm the planned takeover of the Witching Hour Society.
“Our four votes and Fiona and Maureen would have given Stephanie majority control of the council. She would have been the new priestess and converted the rest of the membership to the dark arts without a big fight.” Amanda’s mouth twitched with uncertainty. “But after I heard she killed those people…and the things Fiona did…I guess it wasn’t such a good idea.”
“You were part of it. The kidnapping…and the ceremony,” Maggie said. “Gasoline around hay bales? Just what did you think would happen?”
Amanda dropped her gaze. “No one was supposed to get hurt.”
Maggie stifled a snort. But it was a response confirmed in different words and phrases from every defendant.
Michaels’s coven turned out to be all-female—despite her fictitious description of a male attacker—and primarily young, like Dawn and Amanda. Their susceptibility to Michaels’s persuasive skills…generally conceded by the police shrinks and profilers to be some type of brainwashing technique or hypnosis…was considered a mitigating factor. A number of discussions were held between the task force and the DA’s office regarding potential charges and recommendations for sentencing. The task force, including Maggie and Josh, expressed doubts about extending leniency to the older members, but Madame L intervened, offering to supervise them through her newly formed Awareness Center for women. As a result, the entire coven pled guilty to second-degree battery for their role in the Michaels’s attack and received five years’ probation. At Maggie’s request, no charges regarding the cemetery attack were ever filed.
The following week Maggie stopped by the center to see for herself what kind of program Madame L was providing. The old voodoo shop had been rebuilt into modern meeting rooms to accommodate support groups and a small but unique curriculum of classes. As she looked around for Madame L, Maggie peeked in a classroom and spotted two of the new probationers in an animated discussion group.
At least they were there.
She located Madame L’s office at the back and tapped on the frame of the open door.
The priestess stood, squelching a look of uncertainty. “Oh, Detective York, please, come in and have a seat. Are you checking up on us?”
“I wanted to see your new place.” Maggie was surprised by the woman’s reaction to her visit. They hadn’t had a chance to talk after the judge accepted the probation recommendation, but Maggie didn’t hold a grudge. If she got upset every time the DA or the court didn’t see things her way, she’d be a wreck. Besides, hadn’t she dropped her own charges to give Madame L a change to prove her program would work?
She took a chair at the round conference table. “Quite a change from the smoky mess two weeks ago,” she remarked, as Madame L joined her. “I can hardly believe all this happened so quickly. I heard you’ve made changes at the Society too.”
“We’ve been busy,” LeMontaire conceded. “By-laws changes, stricter membership requirements, more accountability. We modified the Masquerade contest so that anyone can enter, member or not, and the winner’s award is honorary, with a small monetary prize. It no longer has anything to do with the board or an offer of membership.”
“That should help insure nothing like this happens again. How are the probationers doing?”
LeMontaire’s lips curved. “I knew you’d ask, and so far the report is good. All eleven have reported, we’ve worked out a schedule, established support groups, and they’re attending classes on women’s issues, witchcraft history, witchcraft ethics, and a variety of topics that should help them make good life decisions. The most important service we can offer our gifted women is acceptance, education, and appropriate outlets for their abilities.”
For the next hour, the priestess showed her around, producing the individual schedules set up for each probationer, and Maggie was satisfied as they walked toward the door. The new Awareness Center and the Witching Hour Society were both in good hands. Having learned the hard way, Madame L would be vigilant of anyone tempted to stray into forbidden magic.
“I hope you’ll come back,” Madame L said. She pressed a copy of their curriculum into Maggie’s hands. “We should talk. There are always new things each of us can learn.”
* * *
That weekend Maggie and Josh finally had the picnic and boating trip with Harry and Annie before Harry dug into the full veterinary schedule in Baton Rouge. The younger couple arrived at the boat rental at Lake Pontchartrain with a ring sparkling on Annie’s finger.
“It’ll be a long engagement,” she told Maggie off to one side. “Harry has to finish school first and find a job. But I didn’t want this one to get away.”
Maggie watched the brothers stowing the cooler and picnic basket in the bow of the boat, black hair tousled by the wind, white shorts and T-shirts showing off the firm muscles of masculine arms and legs. She understood Annie’s feeling. She’d nearly let it happen to her.
“Hey, are you two going to help?” Harry called.
It broke up further serious talk for the next two hours as they soaked up the sun, the lake breezes, and the spray in their faces. Afterward, they put up the umbrella and sipped drinks from the cooler as they drifted along the shoreline.
Harry lounged with one arm around Annie. “So, is this occult case over now? Everybody’s arrested and my future wife’s no longer in danger?”
“Annie’s perfectly safe,” Maggie assured him. “The coven that cast the curse is disbanded, and both leaders, Gordon and Michaels are dead. The hacker’s in federal prison and working with the feds now. He seems to find taking down other hackers and plugging software holes even more of a challenge than his former criminal life.”
“I’m glad to hear that. He has awesome skills,” Annie said. “What happened to Brice, the cable show guy?”
“Cleared. He made noises about suing, but last I heard he’d taken off for Savannah to investigate a group of ghostbusters.” Maggie gave a dismissive gesture. “He and Sutter both looked suspicious early on but turned out to be nothing but bystanders.”
Harry’s forehead wrinkled in mild interest. “Was Sutter the drunk neighbor with the barking dog?”
“Not anymore, I hope,” Maggie said. “His brother-in-law finally got him into treatment, and Scamp’s living at the tour company office in the swamp.” Normally not a safe environment for a small dog, but Maggie wouldn’t be surprised if he was terrorizing the gators rather than the other way around.
Annie settled deeper in the crook of Harry’s arm. “I’m glad it’s over.”
“Not completely over,” Josh said. “Big Roy Bunjer’s body has never been found.”
“He was part of Michaels’s biggest mistake,” Maggie mused. “The overly dramatic death-by-snake sparked the antagonism between the two women and everything that followed.”
Josh nodded. “Now he’s the only loose end. The sheriff’s office thinks he’s still alive. In fact, they’ve reported a second sighting, and I won’t be satisfied until he’s caught.”
The following Monday afternoon, Josh and Maggie got their chance to make it a clean sweep. Sam, the swamp hunter, called Maggie from the Bait House not far from Selena’s.
“He’s back,” Sam said without preamble. “I saw him shooting free-swimming gators down by his boat an hour ago.”
Maggie heard the disapproval in Sam’s voice. Out of season kills, and using a careless/wasteful method of harvesting gators rarely condoned by real hunters. Violating the code again. Maggie wondered if Sam would have called otherwise.
>
After retrieving Josh’s truck, their vests, and police-issued rifles, they headed south, contacting the Sheriff’s office on the way. When they arrived, six deputies armed with rifles had blocked off the road to Bunjer’s boat and were prepared to set out on foot.
Maggie and Josh joined them, glad to have the deputies—more familiar with the environment—take the lead. The local cops moved through the swamp terrain with silence and impressive speed. When the boat was in sight, the group fanned out, taking up positions to block any escape attempt.
“Bunjer?” the officer in charge called. “Deputy Sheriff Rice here. Need to talk with you.” He waited, then tried again. “Big Roy, you in there? We’re coming in. Don’t you be shooting anyone.”
The report of a rifle shot from the direction of the swamp boat had everyone ducking. Undeterred, the deputies sprang out of the tall swamp grass, crouching and firing as they moved forward. Maggie and Josh fell into step. Bunjer fired two more shots, then popped up to start the boat’s engine. A bullet caught him in the thigh, knocking him off balance, and he tumbled overboard.
Responding to wild thrashing and frantic yells for help, the deputies and Josh rescued Bunjer from the jaws of gators attracted by the blood of his earlier gator slaughter. Nearly hoist with his own petard.
Deputy Rice looked at the half-drowned, bearded giant and the blood soaking his baggy jeans. “Son of a— Someone clipped him in the leg. How we gonna get this big varmit to the road?”
But they made it, Big Roy mostly hopping on one leg and cussing all the way. An ambulance arrived fifteen minutes later, and the last of the occult killers was in custody.
“Don’t you worry about him anymore,” Rice advised. “That leg’ll mend right up, and he won’t be bothering nobody for a long time. Folks don’t tolerate illegal hunting down here.”
Maggie and Josh looked at one another. Not to mention a little thing like murder. A jurisdictional dispute was looming. Josh mouthed, “Not our fight,” and she kept her mouth shut. The important part was that Bunjer was in custody. The prosecutors could settle the rest.
To Maggie and Josh’s surprise, the Sheriff took a broader view of the case and invited the detectives to question the prisoner at the hospital. They jumped at the chance. After informing him of the murder charge, Josh cited Bunjer’s rights.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I watch TV,” Big Roy interrupted from his hospital bed. “Just get on with your damned questions.”
Maggie brought the pertinent sections of Michaels’s confession up on her smartphone and read it to him. “Is that what happened?”
Big Roy scratched his brushy chin. “This lady’s dead. Right? Reckon it’s just this here so-called confession against my word.” He gave them a wily grin. “I shore don’t remember no murder.”
Josh and Maggie returned to New Orleans without a signed confession, but by the time Big Roy was released from the hospital, he was transferred to lockup in New Orleans and charged with felony murder.
* * *
Although Maggie kept an eye out every night for the three ghostly witches, they’d vanished after that long night in Interrogation. At first she was taken aback. Even…a little disappointed. She’d had a parting scene with Bobby Hurst, her first apparition.
She thought about it enough that by midweek she convinced Josh they should return to the cemetery where she’d summoned the trio once before. By midnight that night, they were climbing over the wrought iron fencing.
“See anything yet?” he asked as they approached Shayre’s grave. He sounded tired.
“Nothing unusual.” A heightened awareness hovered in the air, but it was something she experienced in all cemeteries and much different than the rush of energy that surrounded her ghosts. She took his hand. “Thanks for coming with me. I promise this won’t take long. I just need to be sure they’re gone.”
She spoke the witches’ names three times, and then waited. Nothing happened. She tried again. When ten minutes passed without a hint of increased energy, she released a soft sigh. “That’s it, I guess. They’re really gone.”
Josh placed his arm around her and pulled her close. “Sad? Annoyed?”
“Either would be silly, wouldn’t it?” But she thought about it. “Anti-climatic, I guess. But it’s OK. I didn’t have a bond with the ghostly trio…not like Hurst, who actually saved my life—and Harry’s.” She slipped her arm around him, and they walked toward the cemetery gate. “I think they were angry with me, because they took me to Michaels, and I treated her like a victim, rather than the killer she was. Remember, they disappeared for quite a while after that night. And at Shayre’s grave they weren’t very friendly, even threatening. No, all in all, this is a good ending. I’m happy they heard everything they needed to hear and were satisfied enough to move on. That was the goal.”
It also meant her life would be free of ghostly demands…until the next time.
* * *
With the deaths of Michaels and Gordon, the disposal of the coven members’ cases, and Bunjer’s arrest, the task force’s major work was done. The remainder was cleanup. It took two weeks, but follow-up interviews, paperwork, and the remaining lab tests were completed and filed away.
Knowing they’d be starting a new case soon, Maggie and Josh took an extended four-day weekend and got out of town. Long romantic walks, heart-to-heart talks, fantastic nights—just the two of them and the white beaches and sparkling waters of Dauphin Island. They returned tanned, fit, contented, and ready to go.
The following Monday morning in mid-September, they’d just walked into the squad room when a black, hairy thing ran across Maggie’s foot. A robotic spider. That would have cost the pranksters some hefty cash. She jumped forward and stomped it with her foot. It shattered.
Among the cries and protests that erupted, Maggie raised her hands innocently. “Sorry. I thought it was a big bug that needed to be squashed.”
“Spoil sport,” Ross grumbled as he picked up plastic pieces and tossed them in a waste can. “You could have screamed. At least once.”
Maggie stifled an urge to laugh and ignored him, hoping that would put an end to the spider jokes. She perched on the corner of her desk. “Anything big going on?”
“It’s been quiet,” Barclay said. “A murder-suicide, but it was clear-cut. And a shootout between two gangbangers. Nobody saw anything…naturally. They’ll recover to try their luck again. And I’ve just about caught up on paperwork.”
“Quiet time is over.” Jenson stepped out of his office as if he’d been watching for Josh and Maggie to appear. He held up a case folder. “You two are up. The rest of you loafers get back to work. I seem to recall several overdue reports.” He handed the new case file to Josh, then turned to Maggie and lowered his voice. “A few weeks ago we tossed around a possible request to change partners. You said no at the time, but I put a final decision on hold until the case was finished. So, if something needs to happen, tell me now. Did you two get those issues worked out?”
“You bet, Captain.” She ducked her head and peeked sideways at Josh, wondering which recent workout had popped into his mind.
“Brandt, anything to add?”
Josh managed to keep a straight face. “No, sir. No problems to report.”
Jenson chuckled. “I figured as much. Keep in mind I’m still watching you.”
“Uh-huh, I mean, yes, Captain.” Josh was already reading through the preliminary report. He tugged on Maggie’s arm. “Um, Red, we should go. This case has a slight complication.”
“Hey, that’s good. Something interesting.” She slid off the desk and twisted the paper out of Josh hand to read the new assignment. She scanned it and widened her eyes at Captain Jenson. “Are you kidding me?”
“I thought you liked a good challenge.”
“I do, but we…but this…?” She sputtered as Josh urged her across the squad room and out the door.
“He’s right. You do like a challenge. So do I—or I wouldn’t be crazy about
you.”
Maggie was walking backward, talking to Josh, looking him in the face, while he steered her toward the District 13 front entrance. Her face softened for an instant. “Yeah, me too, Brandt. But does it have to be this case? Dead bodies don’t get up and walk away,” she protested, shaking the report at him.
Only ghosts did that, and nobody else could see them.
“I doubt that’s what happened. You know witnesses. The dead guy’s just been misplaced.” Josh’s lips twitched. “On the other hand, this is New Orleans…”
~ About the Author ~
Ally Shields is a Midwestern writer with a love for mystery and the paranormal. Following a career in law and juvenile justice, she took up full-time writing in 2009. In 2012 her first paranormal was published, and she has two completed urban fantasy series. She loves to travel and includes many of those settings in her novels. Readers are always welcome to contact her through her website or track her down on Twitter (@ShieldsAlly).
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