Fatal fog, p.12
Fatal Fog, page 12
“What are you looking at?” Maggie asked. “Did you find anything?”
Maggie looked at every square inch of the pile of crates and the garbage can in front of them, but she couldn't pick out anything different or special about them.
“I may have found something,” Esmeralda said. “I’m just debating whether I should open the trash can and see what it is.”
“What’s stopping you?” Maggie asked. She almost said ‘you’ve investigated everything else we’ve come across today,’ but she stopped short.
“You’re right,” Esmeralda said. “I should see what it is. I just have this feeling that whatever it is will change things, but I’m not getting a reading on how it will change things or if it will be for the better or worse.”
Maggie was too tired to respond. She just wanted to get home and pick at the cold plate of fish she was carrying. She knew her mother would warm it up, but it didn’t seem super appetizing since she had carried it around in a graveyard crime scene while it cooled down. Part of her wished the paranormal part of town had tinfoil.
“Here goes nothing,” Esmeralda said.
She was smiling like she was actually excited about what they were doing. Maggie had always heard that a person should enjoy the work they do, but this seemed a bit extreme. At least Esmeralda got some satisfaction from her incredibly strange position in life.
Lifting up her walking stick, Esmeralda put it under the lip of the garbage can lid and hesitated, almost as if she were counting down. Finally, she gave it a little push, flipping the lid off. It hit the pavement and clattered off down the alley, rolling and clanging as it went until it finally landed against another trash can further on. If they were trying to do this in secret, it definitely wasn’t a stealth mission anymore.
Esmeralda crept up to the can as if she were afraid something would jump out of it. All that Maggie could see from her spot further down the alley were some bags of trash and some other vaguely trashlike materials inside that she didn’t care to inspect further.
“Ah-ha, there is something in here,” Esmeralda cried.
She jabbed her walking stick into the trash can and lifted it up. Something made of cloth was draped over it and there was a very suspicious-looking stain that spread down it. Laying it down on the ground, Esmeralda used her stick to try and lay it flat.
Maggie moved a bit closer as Esmeralda worked, suddenly intrigued by whatever this thing was. Esmeralda worked diligently to open the cloth up and try to figure out what the original shape was. Maggie couldn't figure out if it were a small blanket or a coat or something. No matter, she was jealous of Esmeralda’s powers of perception and she couldn’t help but hope that what her mother said was true. If Maggie’s powers were as strong as Esmeralda thought, maybe she could do cool things like this sooner rather than later.
“Well, here we go,” Esmeralda said. “It’s a sweatshirt.”
Maggie looked down. It was a plain gray sweatshirt that didn’t appear to have any markings on it besides the gigantic blood stain. Actually, it was multiple blood stains all over. Whoever had been wearing this had not been careful.
“Do you think it’s connected to the murder?” Maggie asked.
“I would venture a guess that it is definitely connected to the murder,” Esmeralda said. She jabbed the sweatshirt triumphantly with her walking stick. “I think the murderer was wearing this when they killed Rodney. And it just helps prove my point.”
“What point?” Maggie asked.
“It proves that Dan couldn’t have been the murderer,” Esmeralda said.
Chapter Eighteen
Maggie tried to look at the sweatshirt that her mother had pulled out with fresh eyes. Suddenly, it dawned on her. That sweatshirt looked like it would fit her, not a gigantic ogre. Even when Dan wasn’t a paranormal creature, he was still quite a large man.
“Dan couldn’t have worn that,” Maggie said.
Esmeralda smiled at Maggie, her eyes sparkling with pride. Maggie couldn't help but feel a little flash of warmth down to her soul. When someone was pleased with her, it made her feel like she really was a person who had something to offer to the world.
“Exactly,” Esmeralda said. “If this was worn by the murderer, and I have a hunch that it was, then the murderer would have to be significantly smaller than Dan. Don’t take this as a slight on Dan, but I don't think he is smart enough to wear a tiny sweatshirt to then plant as evidence.”
“Well, then who wore this sweatshirt?” Maggie asked. “If it's that small, whose is it?”
Esmeralda looked puzzled for a moment. Then her face lit up, a smile appearing as she closed the gap between her and Maggie.
“I’m not sure, but I am hungry,” she said. “Let’s eat.”
Maggie looked around the dark, fog-covered alley. Had her mother lost her marbles?
“You think we should eat here?” Maggie asked.
“No, no,” Esmeralda laughed, waving off her comment with the flick of a wrist. “I think we should go sit on the steps of the mausoleum over there to eat.”
Before Maggie could protest, Esmeralda snatched the top plate of food from her and started toward the mausoleum. Maggie followed behind, feeling a bit too creeped out to be by herself at a crime scene.
Once Esmeralda reached the stairs, she put her plate down and motioned for Maggie to do the same. With a point of her finger, the food was suddenly the perfect warm temperature. With a snap of Esmeralda’s fingers, the streetlights up above shone even brighter than before. And with one more twist of the wrist, each witch was holding a fork.
Both witches were silent for a while as they devoured the trout that Dan had prepared for them. Maggie had to agree with Esmeralda’s previous statement: the trout was one of the best things she’d eaten in her entire life. It was definitely the best piece of fish she had ever eaten. And with the help of a little magic, it was a wonderful warm dinner for what was starting to turn into a chilly night, although Maggie had to ignore her surroundings while she enjoyed it.
Once they were both done with dinner, Esmeralda spoke up.
“I think we need to go look at the sweatshirt again,” Esmeralda said. “We know it isn’t Dan’s, but maybe if we take another look, we can find a clue that will point us to whose sweatshirt it actually is.”
The witches left their empty plates on the stairs and went back to where the sweatshirt was laying on the ground. Both of them walked down to the waistband of the shirt so that they were looking at it the correct way. That’s when Maggie noticed something.
“Wait a minute, this looks like the back of the sweatshirt,” Maggie said. “Look at the neckline. It is too high to even be a crew neck. That means this has to be the back.”
“We need to turn the shirt over,” Esmeralda said. “Perhaps there are some words or things written on the front that would mean more to us.”
Maggie stepped forward and bent down to grab the sweatshirt before her mother grabbed her by the shoulder. Pulling her back up to standing, Esmeralda gave her a stern look.
“We can’t just touch it, Maggie,” Esmeralda said. “It's evidence. What’s more, this could be a key piece of evidence that will point us to the real killer. We cannot disturb it like that.”
Maggie could feel her cheeks get hot. She had gotten so excited about noticing something helpful that she had lost her head. Her internal voice started to beat her up, telling her how stupid she was. She squeezed her eyes shut to try and make the voice stop. It became quieter but was still in the background like the hum of an electrical appliance.
“It’s okay, but you need to help me,” Esmeralda said. “If we try to use just my walking stick to turn it over, we might damage the evidence. What we need is three more sticks so that we can both have a pair to grab a small section and flip it over. I think that’ll be the best way for us to do this. I’ll stay here, you go find some sticks. Here, take this lantern.”
Esmeralda conjured up an old-fashioned lantern with a candle inside that she shoved into Maggie’s hands. Heading off into the fog, Maggie started to study the ground for sticks. There were plenty of grave markers and grass, but sticks seemed to be few and far between.
Finally, Maggie stumbled onto a twisted, gnarled looking tree that had some sticks lying on the ground underneath it. They weren’t very big or sturdy, but it was the best she was going to find. Tucking a big bundle of them under one arm, Maggie held up the lantern to light her way back to her mother.
“Why did you grab so many?” Esmeralda asked when Maggie dropped the dozen or so sticks next to the sweatshirt.
“They weren’t exactly easy to find,” Maggie said. “And none of them were very big. If a few sticks break, I don’t want to have to keep running out there to find more.”
Esmeralda shrugged and grabbed a stick from the pile. Using the branch and her walking stick, Esmeralda pinched the sleeve of the sweatshirt between them and lifted up a little. It seemed like her idea might just work.
“Come on, grab a few sticks and help me,” the older witch said.
Maggie scrutinized the pile and grabbed the two sticks that appeared to be the biggest and hopefully the sturdiest of the bunch. Pinching the other sleeve with her sticks, Maggie gingerly lifted it off the ground. Looking up at her mother, Maggie nodded. She was ready.
“On my count,” Esmeralda said. “I think we need to try to do this as smoothly as a team as possible. Ready? One, two, three.”
The witches slowly picked the sweatshirt off of the ground, but before they could flip it, it slipped out from between Maggie’s sticks and crumpled to the ground. Maggie tried to grab it with her sticks before it totally slipped away, but she wasn’t fast enough.
Maggie grumbled to herself under her breath. She had thought this entire plan was overkill, but she had gone along with it for her mother’s sake. Now here she had been the one to mess it up. Maggie felt like she couldn't do anything right. She was destined to be a failure no matter how simple the job was.
“Oh no, that wasn’t what we wanted,” Esmeralda said. She gave Maggie a small smile. “No matter. Things don’t always work the way we want them to. Let’s try again.”
Nodding, Maggie bit her lip. She was determined not to screw it up again. Esmeralda had kept hold of her sticks and their hold of the one sleeve. Maggie pushed the fabric around a little bit until she could locate her sleeve again. Once she sorted it out, she held tight with her sticks and looked into her mother’s eyes.
“I’m ready,” Maggie said.
“Right, on with it then,” Esmeralda said. Her voice was light and cheerful as if they were out apple picking instead of investigating a crime scene. “A bit slower this time perhaps? One, two, three.”
This time, Maggie pinched the sticks together as tightly as she possibly could. She was determined not to let the shirt slip away from her again. They worked slowly, picking the shirt up and off of the ground. Each time Maggie felt it start to slip, she managed to maneuver her sticks to pinch it tighter again.
Finally, they got the shirt to hang in the air as if it were on an invisible hanger. From her vantage point on the side, Maggie couldn't tell what the front of the sweatshirt looked like. She would have to wait until they laid it down.
“Okay, now we are going to swing it back and forth and I’ll tell you when to put it down,” Esmeralda said.
The two witches started to move their sticks back and forth in unison, making the bottom of the sweatshirt sway with them. Maggie had a brief worry that someone might come across them and wonder what in the world they were doing, but at least they were in the paranormal world so they could just say it was a strange magic ritual and no one would question it.
“On three we are going to lay it down,” Esmeralda said. “One, two, three.”
Counting with the back and forth motion, on three the witches used their stick to push the top of the sweatshirt down to the ground. This time it was the right side up. Maggie was afraid that it would be messed up again, but once everything settled, the sweatshirt was nicely spread out on the ground.
“We did it,” Maggie said.
A big smile spread across her face as she looked up at her mother. Esmeralda had a smile on her face that extended to her eyes. Maggie knew that her mother always believed in her, but it was hard when Maggie didn’t always believe in herself. Even for small things like flipping the sweatshirt over, Maggie would find herself filled with terror and dread. The only thing that kept her going was the thought that Esmeralda believed in her no matter what.
“I knew we could,” Esmeralda said. “More importantly, I knew you could. My side was a bit easier because I had my walking stick to help. You only had those little twigs. But we need to take a look at the sweatshirt a bit closer. Hand me your lantern.”
Maggie grabbed the lantern she had used to look for sticks and handed it to Esmeralda. The older witch stretched her arm out until she was holding the lantern directly above the sweatshirt. Then she made a small motion like she was hanging the lantern on a hook. When she pulled her hand back, the lantern floated in mid-air above the shirt.
It seemed that the simplest forms of magic were the most impressive to Maggie. She stared at her mother in disbelief. Esmeralda simply winked at her before kneeling down next to the shirt.
“It says something on here, but I can’t quite read it,” Esmeralda said. “What does it say?”
Maggie knelt down next to the other side of the shirt. There was something printed across the front, but it was partially covered with bloodstains. Maggie squinted a bit until she figured out what it said. She gasped out loud as she recognized the phrase from another shirt she had seen the day before.
“It says ‘Mom Life’,” Maggie said. “Jill was wearing a t-shirt that said the same thing yesterday. Do you think this is hers also? We need to go ask her.”
“We will in the morning,” Esmeralda said. “We can’t go bursting in there at this time of night, waking up her pups just to confirm she owns more than one shirt that says ‘Mom Life’ on it. I think we need some rest also.”
The witches bagged up the sweatshirt and collected their plates. As they walked home in silence, Esmeralda and her lantern leading the way, Maggie couldn't help but try to think through everything.
Was this Jill’s sweatshirt or just a massive coincidence? Would Jill really kill Rodney? She had mentioned that their house was going to be foreclosed on and her husband had a gambling problem. Maggie knew that she wasn’t going to sleep a wink while she tried to think through this new clue.
Chapter Nineteen
The next morning, Maggie felt like a zombie. She tried to remember if she had seen a zombie in the paranormal version of the town, but she couldn't remember. Either way, her gray complexion and the bags under her eyes would not be out of place.
Maggie wanted to go out right away and confront Jill, but Esmeralda made her wait until the sun came up, not that they could actually see it on account of the paranormal fog. While her mother made toast and bacon, Maggie’s thoughts raced.
Had Jill asked Maggie to babysit so that she could kill Rodney? Sure, childcare was hard to find, but Maggie was a bit upset that she had potentially enabled Jill to kill someone by being forced to watch her children. It almost made her feel like an accomplice to the crime.
It had taken Esmeralda three times of asking to get Maggie to answer how many eggs she wanted to eat. She scrutinized Maggie’s face before turning back to the frying pan. In a few minutes, a plate of hot breakfast was delivered to Maggie’s place at the dining room table and Esmeralda slid into the chair next to her.
“Okay, tell me what this is all about,” Esmeralda said. She speared a piece of scrambled egg and started to eat, which put Maggie a bit at ease.
So Maggie told her everything, every little thought and detail and worry that had been running through her mind all night. She shared her worry that she was an unwitting accessory to the crime and that by turning Jill in, they would be destroying a family.
Through it all Esmeralda sat and listened, eating her breakfast and drinking her coffee. At the end of Maggie’s spiel, she pointed her finger at Maggie’s plate to reheat the food.
“Now it’s my turn to talk and your turn to eat,” she said.
Maggie started to eat even though she really didn’t feel that hungry at all. The food was good, though, and it seemed to help slightly as she listened to her mother.
“First of all, we don’t actually know if it is Jill’s shirt,” Esmeralda said. “Here’s what we do know: Jill has a similar shirt. We think this sweatshirt was also hers, but we can't quite remember. It was worn by the killer, which can’t be Dan now. Jill may be the killer, but we aren’t going to jump to any conclusions before we actually go to her house and talk to her. So once you finish up, we will be taking a little walk over there and asking her a few questions. Until then, try to put the worries out of your head and finish your food.”
Maggie smiled at the motherly advice at the end. Esmeralda was good at many things, but she was the best at being a great mother. Maggie focused on finishing her food and coffee. Not only did it put her in a slightly better mood, but it made her lack of sleep a bit less apparent.
After a short walk through the fog, the witches were outside Jill’s house. Maggie could hear the sounds of rambunctious fun and laughter erupting from inside. It was simultaneously cheerful and completely overwhelming. Maggie felt like she was having flashbacks to the previous morning when she had been the one trying to wrangle the wolf pups.
Esmeralda used her walking stick to hit the door. The sound was almost ominous, but Maggie knew that it might just be her imagination. The two witches stared at the door, waiting for it to open. After a while, Maggie turned to her mother.
