My sights then landed on Wylie South, who was meandering down the street.
All the players were here—every one of them, though I was certain that I knew who had committed the crime.
We reached Malene, and she pulled us to the side of the building, away from the foot traffic. “We all set?”
Rufus spoke. “Let’s go over it one more time. As soon as the sun sets, but before the parade begins, we’ll do our performance. Can you get us on the roofs of the buildings?”
Urleen pulled a set of keys from her purse. “This skeleton key will get us anyplace we want to go.”
“Good,” he said. “As we discussed, I’ll be the one who makes the big announcement. I won’t leave that to any of you. Does everyone understand?”
“I’ve got it,” Norma Ray said. “No problem.”
“How much time?” Malene asked.
I gazed at my watch. “Thirty minutes until sunset.”
Urleen lifted the keys. “Then let’s start getting into position.”
It took about twenty of those thirty minutes for each of us to find our own rooftop. It didn’t help that Norma Ray decided to question Urleen’s skeleton keys, insisting that they weren’t keys at all but metal sticks.
Once again, Urleen told Norma Ray that she needed glasses. Norma Ray replied by muttering a curse word under her breath.
Finally, as the sun’s last rays disappeared on the horizon, we were each where we were supposed to be, standing atop a roof, looking down at the folks below.
In my hand I held a spell that would create smoke and light, a magician’s spell, Rufus had called it.
Now, all I had to do was wait for Malene to begin. But first I had to put on my black friar’s robe, as I liked to refer to it. Yes, Urleen had pulled them out of her purse and handed one to each of us.
I slid into the robe that was about a zillion sizes too big. As a deep blue descended on the sky and a cool breeze slid through the air, lifting my hair from my shoulders, I pulled the hood over my head.
That’s when Malene threw the spell to her feet. Light blasted the air, and a great rumble sounded.
From below, the crowd glanced up, trying to find where the commotion was coming from.
Malene raised her arms. “We are the witches who can see the future! We saw the death of one not long ago!”
Urleen tossed her spell to her feet, illuminating her. “We have seen the future again, oh people of Peachwood. We saw that Crystal Darsey would be killed and now—”
Norma Ray tossed down her ball, and a halo of light brightened her. “And now, we’ve seen more!”
It was my turn. I launched the spell to my feet and stared down at the crowd. “The next premonition has arrived. We now know the rest.”
It was Rufus’s turn to bring this home. He glowed a fiery red and white, making him look like the very center of a blazing inferno.
“I have seen the one who will confess to the murder of Crystal Darsey. I alone know who is the real killer. And it is my time to announce it. The person who killed Crystal Darsey is—”
And that’s when the parade started. Dooley Hutto, totally oblivious to the fact that a crazy presentation was going on above him, fired up the engine of his old diesel truck. The vehicle spat and coughed as he made his way down the center of town.
Leola Vass sat in the back, waving like the homecoming queen—only fifty years past her prime, that was.
It was time for us to move and move quickly. We needed to get off the rooftops and back down into the street. That was an important part of the plan. But first, I had to take off my stupid monk’s robe.
And that was when a spotlight hit me. The glare was so bright that I couldn’t see, but I could hear Tuney Sluggs’s voice on a megaphone.
“Clementine Cooke, get down here right now.”
I fell to the ground as my phone dinged. It was from Rufus.
