The Witches’ Bane
by Edward Ahern
Chapter 9: The Cat Woman
Helen Connelley kept cats. At least six of them prowled through her pond-side cottage, their musk insinuating through the odor-layer of cleaning solution. She blithely ignored the cats’ presence, and the hairs that billowed up when she and Gordon sat down.
“Thanks for seeing me, Ms. Connelley—”
“Helen, please.”
Helen, please, was dark Irish, late fortyish, and muscle stocky — what the Hitler Youth would have wanted their little girls to grow into. “Helen, I’m the one who found Judy at her cottage. We’d been close, and I’m struggling to put her life here in some kind of perspective. You and she were friends, I think?”
“Judy was a private person, but yes, we were friends.”
Gordon had cocked his head like an attentive dog, absorbing Helen’s expressions and gestures. Her movements were quick and sure, suggesting ballet or martial arts training. She was about 5’9” and had maybe 170 pounds of defined muscle. Gordon was betting on dojo rather than dance. He also noticed, under the attar of cat piss, the scent of herbs. Unusual herbs.
“I’m making tea, Gordon. Could you join me?”
“That would be nice, thanks.”
As Helen prepared the tea, they raised their voices in inter-room small talk. When she set the tea in front of him, Gordon held his hands over the cup. The ruby paled and he left the tea unsipped.
“Were you both members of a club?”
Helen laughed sharply. “No, nothing like that. We’d get together once in a while with some other women for a stitch-and-bitch session over drinks, but nothing organized. Drink your tea, please. It’s quite good Oolong.”
“Who else got together with the two of you?”
“Sylvie, of course... Sylvie LaGrande. Maureen Curtis, me, occasionally one or two other women.
Gordon put the ball in play. “Helen, I need to ask your help with something.”
“If I can.”
“This is going to sound weird, but Judy was deeply involved with witchcraft. Not the whole-earth, heal-your-psyche kind of thing, but the blood sacrifice, curse-your-neighbor stuff. She was going to tell me about it but was murdered before we had a chance to talk. The police are looking for a murderer with the usual mundane motives, but I think she was involved with a coven that silenced her as soon as they found out she was going to talk to me.”
Helen’s expression had stiffened while he was talking. “I don’t know anything about that. We were just friends.” Her lips continued to move slightly, but there were no sounds. She was sub-audibly chanting a spell or curse.
Gordon already had his protections in place and, with annoyance, began an object-lesson spell of his own, one that would cause Helen’s familiar considerable pain. A Persian halfbreed began yowling and writhing nicely. Helen broke off her efforts and jumped over to tend to the cat. Gordon terminated the spell, and Helen brought the now silent cat back with her to the sofa, holding it in her lap.
Gordon resumed his goading. “I’m sure you were just friends, Helen. But I’m going to stick with this until I get some answers. I’ll be asking your mutual friends if they’d noticed anything odd about what Judy was doing.”
“They won’t know anything.”
“Probably not, but the probing needs to be thorough. Are you perhaps a Wiccan? Or a member of a coven?”
“Of course not! I don’t like your innuendos, and do think you should go, Mister—”
“Lormor. I’ll be here for some time, investigating things, so please call if you think of anything.”
They shook hands again, stiffly. Gordon confirmed that the bottom edge of her palm was hardened. The lovely Helen spent a lot of time hitting things.
Gordon smiled. He’d inserted himself like a burrowing tick. Let’s see how the witches try and pluck me out, he thought.
Copyright © 2018 by Edward Ahern
