“Question. Hugo Ames’ wife. Is she from a witch family?”
Occam frowned, a thin line forming between his sandy brown brows. “Revenge is a good motivator. Hugo’s dead. His ex-wife isn’t. Don’t know about his lady friend. Lainie’s trying to narrow down who Hugo was sleeping with. Maybe Hugo was sleeping with Ingrid Wayns? She’s dead. Or maybe it was another one of Stella’s riders? You think his wife mighta tried to kill her rival and him and missed on the woman? Mighta got Stella instead? Hugo ain’t on her list a lovers and he ain’t Stella’s usual type.” He shook his head. “None of the riders read as a witch on the psy-meter, but we ain’t read the wife yet, because we didn’t know she was a factor.” He frowned around his fist, thinking. “What if he was sleeping with Stella’s housekeeper?” he asked. “Or Monica. They’re dead too.”
“Ethel Myer said the woman Hugo was sleeping with was a college girl and rode horses. All the riders fit that description,” I said, pulling my tablet and checking my files. “And everyone at the farm had access to horses if they felt like riding.”
Occam’s brow smoothed. “You mentioned early on about the possibility of the target not being Stella. But Stella...”
“Stella is a focal,” I said softly. “The big important person, the victim that drew our eyes. But betrayal and revenge? They cross over all the socioeconomic lines. Those feelings don’t care about stardom or wealth, just getting back, getting even, and killing.”
“Monica didn’t travel the entire tour with the band. She was back and forth to the farm. Plenty of time and opportunity to still be seeing Hugo. The housekeeper, Verna Upton, was young and she didn’t travel at all.” Occam pulled out his tablet and sat on my blanket with me, our sides barely touching. “We don’t have a signal, but I have most of the files here.” I leaned against him, thinking about what I needed to say, as he hunted through the files. “I don’t see a full job description,” he said, annoyed. “All I got is, Verna was taking online college classes. Like halfthe employees, she fits in with the information we got from the old woman, Hugo’s landlady.”
“If there’s any evidence at his house, it’s decomposed by now,” I said. “And Monica was a recent college grad. She could fit the parameters too.”
“We need to know whose job it was to unpack the swag. Maybe Monica was supposed to have all the deliveries unpacked already. Maybe she was too busy sleeping with Hugo to do her job, and that’s why she dove in when Stella’s body was found.”
Brainstorming was usually one of my favorite parts of this job, but not this time. I was silent. Still processing the bone-wood.
Occam said, “They said Monica was high-strung and had to be doing things all the time. They said she was frenzied, putting swag away, and they couldn’t stop her. They thought she was both grieving and in shock and doing her job.”
I nodded because Occam expected it of me.
“But maybe she saw the box of T-shirts and they were her married boyfriend’s production,” Occam said. “Maybe all sorts of emotions erupted in her, making her unpack the shirts. Could be.” Occam stood and pulled me up with him, my hand in his. He tossed the blanket into the crook of his elbow and took my potted plant in his other hand. I hadn’t explained about the root-wrapped bones.
We wandered through the grass to T. Laine, who was sitting in the center of the old circle, eyes closed, a smile on her face. She was in a yoga position, her legs bent, ankles crossed, hands on her knees. It looked an awful lot like me communing with Soulwood. When she opened her eyes, it took a while to focus on us. When she did, Occam explained our speculation on the latest suspect.
T. Laine pursed her lips, staring around the stones, seeming peaceful. “JoJo’s already started on a family background search of the Ameses.”
“Afore we do that,” I said, my voice still soft, my feet standing above the bones wrapped in old roots, “I got things to tell you’uns. And you might need to arrest me.”
“Nell, sugar?”
He reached for me, but I sidestepped away and took theblanket, unfolding it to its full size. No way could I let him be loving to me when I had a confession to make. I sat.
Occam’s eyes were on me, his body still as a hunting cat, focused with his whole being. Moving like a cat, he folded down, a nearly boneless motion, and sat beside me. T. Laine scooted closer, until she was on the blanket too, the three of us all but touching, in our own small, paranormal, three-person circle. This grouping, the three of us, together—witch, were, andyinehi—felt important, like a pact, a promise of some kind. Though I knew it meant nothing. Not really.
“Thedeath and decay,” I said. “I thought early on that it was familiar somehow. And now I know why.” I leaned out and touched the ground, both palms flat. “Under the earth, exactly here, are the bones of a plant-woman. She was part tree when she was murdered. Or sacrificed. Or maybe when she killed herself.”
I looked at my friends. They were silent. Watching me.
“A plant-woman,” I said again. “Ayinehi. Like me.” Still they said nothing. “I have killed two men in my life. The first...” I touched the ground again, aware of the bones below me. Had she been attacked? Was she pregnant from the attack? “I never saw his face. I have no idea who he was. He attacked me on my farm. In our struggle, I scratched him. His blood landed on the dirt. It was unknowing instinct. Self-defense. I fed him to the land.”
“Where’s the body?” T. Laine asked.
“There is no body. When I feed the land, there’s nothing left. Not a hair, not a fingernail, not a leg bone. Not a sole from a shoe. Not a belt buckle. The land dissolves and absorbs it all. Soulwood even takes the soul. That life energy makes the trees grow. And it gives me my power.”
“I see,” T. Laine said, no emotion in her voice, none in her eyes.
“The second man I fed to the earth was Brother Ephraim, not long after I met Rick and Paka.” Paka had been Rick’s wereleopard mate before she tried to kill him. “Ephraim and two other churchmen attacked me and my home. Paka, in werecat form, defended me and nearly killed Ephraim. He was dying.”
“She bit him?” Occam asked. Biting a human was anautomatic death sentence. “And the grindylow didn’t kill her?” His tone was confused, disbelieving.
“Before the grindylows got to him, I fed him to the land. And though Paka had bitten him, and may have deserved to die according to were-creature law, she didn’t. The grindy let her go free.”
“No grindylow woulda let a were-creature go free after biting a human,” Occam said.
“Rick knew about this?” T. Laine asked.
“Yes.”
