Page 43 of Witch and Tell

“All right, what? Where is he?”

Buffy and Thor looked at each other. Finally, Buffy spoke. “He’s at home.”

That was it? Ian was home? “Alone?”

“You mean, was he, like, all lovey-dovey with Lalena?” Buffy asked.

“Was he by himself?” I repeated. I corrected my tone of voice to be less short. It wasn’t Buffy and Thor’s fault I was suspected of homicide, and, on top of that, had had very little sleep.

“Yes,” Thor said. “We knocked on his door and asked if he wanted a car wash, and we didn’t see anyone else.”

“He said his car was fine,” Buffy added. “But he kept looking around, like he thought someone was going to get him.”

Someone like the sheriff, maybe, I wondered. “Thanks, you two.”

After they ran off, I went to find Roz at Circulation. She was perusing a home-decorating magazine.

“What do you think of these curtains? Too busy?” She pointed at a photo of floor-to-ceiling pink chintz drapes. “Lyndon would appreciate the botanical theme.”

“Perfect for a romance author,” I said. I took a fortifying breath. “I need to take the afternoon off.” I braced myself for Roz’s disapproving glare.

“Okay,” she said absently.

My jaw gaped. “You’re fine with it?” Although I was Roz’s boss on paper, she somehow usually ended up gaining the upper hand.

“Sure.” She absently flipped the page. “You won’t have much personal time in the pen. Might as well enjoy freedom while you’ve got it.”

I resisted the urge to swipe her hand fan and tap her on the skull, and I made my way over the river and down the hill to the Magnolia Rolling Estates.

Fingers crossed it was not to visit a murderer.

Ian’s van was still parked in its same spot in the drive way. Neither light nor movement showed in his trailer’s windows. Yet Buffy and Thor had said he was home.

I hesitated before coming closer. If my guess was right that Tyrone’s was the body found in the woods, Ian was the logical killer. However, I couldn’t imagine him wheeling his chair through the fern-choked trail with a body over his shoulder. He might have lured Tyrone to the woods and killed him there, but even that was a stretch. If there was any bad blood between the men, there’s little chance Tyrone would have taken Ian’s bait.

Then there was the fact that Ian had presented himself at the sheriff’s office to prove he was alive. If he had killed Tyrone, why would he come out of hiding to get me off the hook?

My Aunt Beata was behind this. I was sure of it. However, my guess was that her style was more to drive people to their deaths, not to murder them outright. She may have latched onto another man’s crime to have me put away. If so, it was possible that man was Ian.

I gingerly walked up the ramp to the front door and raised my fist to knock. Before my hand made contact, the door opened. I faced Ian through the screen.

“Josie! I’m so glad you’re all right,” Ian said.

“You are?”

“Come in.” He rolled his chair back and motioned for me to enter. He certainly wasn’t acting like a murderer. “Sit down.”

I pushed open the screen door and took a seat on the couch. “Where have you been?”

“I had to let them know I was alive,” Ian said, his words coming in a rush. “When I found out you were arrested, that is.” He rolled back an inch. “For my murder.”

“How did you know? You still haven’t said where you were.”

“I was hiding.”

I waited for more. The detective novels I loved so much recommended silence as a way to elicit further response, but it didn’t seem to be working right now. “Where? Lalena looked everywhere for you.”

The mention of Lalena’s name worked. “I felt so bad disappearing like that. It was for her own good. If she’d known….”