“And I didn’t kill Garrett, honest to God,” she said. “But if our magical Vows aren’t forcing the point …”
“Then ours aren’t, either,” Miss Dane said.
“Couldn’t you tell?” Beatrix asked.
Miss Knight shrugged. “I didn’t wait to see—I just answered. So did Rosemarie, for that matter.”
Beatrix called on the women’s Vows again. Neither was pressed into speaking.
“How is this possible?” she cried.
Peter slumped into the chair behind his desk. “The Vows must not think Garrett’s death and the question of whether one of us killed him falls within the category of ‘harm.’”
“Which isn’t very surprising,” Miss Dane said tartly. “Seeing as how he was about to do great harm to all of us. Andno, I still didn’t kill him.”
“Maybe none of us did.” Beatrix sat in the chair on the other side of his desk. “Maybe it really was an accident.”
“But if police believe it was foul play, I’ll be their key suspect,” he said.
Beatrix looked at him—distress in her eyes, the press of her lips, the swoop in his stomach that surely came from her—but did not argue the point. Hadn’t he been her prime suspect, too?
Lydia frowned. “Just because you’re both wizards?”
“He died just shy of my property line.”
“Which they ought to see as evidence that youdidn’tdo it,” Miss Dane said, “because you’re not an idiot, plus you can easily move a body.”
“—andinvestigators could find out a few things that would lead them to see a motive that wasn’t there.” He hated to bring this up, not knowing how much Beatrix had shared with her sister and Miss Dane, but he saw no way around it. “Garrett made Beatrix an offer of marriage last fall. She turned him down. He blamed me.”
“What?”Miss Dane seemed more shocked by this than Garrett’s death. She turned on Beatrix. “Precisely when were you planning on telling us this?”
“Precisely never,” Beatrix muttered.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her. “There’s more, though—Garrett asked Miss Sederey to pretend to burns she didn’t have this afternoon in order to lure me out of the house.”
Beatrix’s eyes widened. “Why in heaven’s name did she agree to that?”
“Because she wants to marry a wizard. She thought this might endear her to him. And,” he said, unable to avoid the subject any longer, “because I’d told her in no uncertain terms that she would not be marrying me.”
“Oh,” she murmured.
“So, to sum up, the police might hear about a supposed love triangle between Beatrix, the deceased and me; about his attempt to get me out of the house shortly before his death; and my panicked teleportation from the Sederey farm once I found out.” Peter rubbed his temples in a vain attempt to stave off a headache. “Motive, means, no alibi. What are they going to think?”
After a grim pause, Miss Dane said, “I don’t suppose you’d like to put the unfortunate Wizard Garrett elsewhere and let some other soul find him.”
“What?”
“Just thinking strategically,” she said. “It’s what I do.”
“No, I won’t,” he said flatly.
Lydia nodded, agreeing with him. “We have to call the police to report it ourselves.”
“When should we? And who should call?” Miss Knight said.
“I should, I think,” Beatrix said. “I did find him.”
“But wait until tomorrow.” Peter sighed. “I need more time to decide whether to stay or run.”
