Witching Time (The Wild Hunt #14) - Yasmine Galenorn Page 0,66

able to weave his magic using the energy from the stars. Maybe she thought he could make her wishes come true, I suppose.”

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star…” I shook my head. “Okay, how and when did he die?”

“He died five months after they got married, on New Year’s Eve in 1959. He fell into an old well when they were house hunting. Oddly enough, they were looking at a farm near where the Dream Circle Farm is. There was a well that had been boarded over, but the plywood had weakened and it broke through when he stepped on it. I don’t know why he was standing on it—nobody in their right mind does that. But Elzabeth told the police that he had been drinking. Once again, high blood-alcohol levels were confirmed. You want to know what I think?”

“I know what you think and I agree. She weakened the board somehow, or saw that it was weak and steered him onto it. Did the cops ever question as to how come she was blowing her way through husbands?”

Wager shook his head. “Nope. All three deaths looked entirely accidental. But you and I both know that Elzabeth murdered her husbands. She waited two years before marrying again, and that was to Jericho. He had money and maybe she saw her dream finally happening.”

I frowned. That made sense. “She usually killed them within a year of getting married. I wonder how Jericho managed to outlive that, since they didn’t actually buy the farm until 1965.”

“That’s a question I can answer,” Wager said. “They didn’t actually buy the farm. It was his. He inherited the land from his father.”

I stared at him. “So he was due to come into possession of the land at some point. Maybe she decided to wait…or…hey, his father—how did he die?”

“You’re thinking like a detective now, Raven,” Wager said, laughing. “I checked into that. His father was in prime health, but in 1964, he and Jericho went hiking, and William—Jericho’s father—fell off of a cliff. Jericho told police that they had been searching for a way down the side of the ravine—it’s pretty steep. This was up in the Cascade foothills. His father refused to rope up and boom, his foot slipped, and he went tumbling down the cliff. Records show there was a quake right about the time he fell—only 3.5 but still, that’s enough to shake a hiker loose from a cliff.” He tossed the reports on the desk, pushing them over to my side.

“Was Elzabeth with them that day?”

“Jericho and Elzabeth insisted she wasn’t…but nobody else saw her that day. Who knows? It’s unlikely we’ll ever know.”

“Was Jericho an earth witch?”

Wager nodded. “His whole family was. So yeah, four marriages, three husbands dead within a year of marriage, one father-in-law dead when he stayed too healthy for too long, fourth husband missing and presumed dead. That’s how I see this case.”

I stared at the reports. “She’s still alive, you say?”

“Yep. She married again, to a gentleman farmer named George Dayton. They own a couple of acres and she sells vegetables at the farmers market. He’s retired and content to live on his pension. I have their address here. Trouble is, there’s no way to pin any of this on her. Unless you can come up with evidence that she killed the girl—and solid evidence, at that—Elzabeth will go through the rest of her life, getting away with at least five murders.” He shook his head. “Pity.”

I stared at the reports. I wanted to fly out there, to drag her on a plane and bring her back to stand trial. But would we have enough evidence? With these thoughts and more in my head, I thanked Wager, paid his fee, and headed down to the Wild Hunt. I wanted to talk to Herne.

Chapter Fourteen

The Wild Hunt was smack downtown on First Avenue, tucked between a bunch of fetish brothels, mom-and-pop delis, and a few other boutique stores. It was in a tall five-story brownstone that had recently been made handicapped-accessible after the city lit into the building owner and threatened him with a massive fine.

Herne’s agency took up the entire fourth floor, and as I stepped into the elevator and punched the button, I was surprised to find it working smoothly. For the longest time, the elevator was hit-or-miss, but apparently along with adding a ramp, the owner had finally quit jerry-rigging the elevator and now it worked smoothly.

I stepped into the office’s reception area. Angel waved