Something Wicked, page 6
When Martin and Crane arrived back on the café side, I set the cups of tea I’d made for them on the counter and nudged the saucers in their general direction. They both looked as if they might protest—drinking tea probably doesn’t look very cool for a cop—but both relented and sat on the stools at the counter. Crane’s utility belt banged against the metal legs of the chair.
“Do you have any idea what it was he might have been after in here?” Martin asked, sipping her tea politely but then smiling in a more genuine way when she tasted it. “This is really good.”
I smiled back. “Thanks. And no. My first thought was that the shop has been unopened for a few weeks while I’ve been getting my aunt’s accounts in order, but that should make someone less likely to rob it, not more. There are no recent deposits here—no money. It’s not like there are any rare books, worth millions, we have locked away—it’s not that kind of store. We have some first editions, but they’re only worth a few hundred dollars each, and that’s if you know where to sell them. We’re a bit more frugal here.” I pointed in the direction of the dollar book bin to make my point.
“You said earlier that Dierdre Miller has been harassing you?”
“Harass might be a bit dramatic of me. Let’s just say she continues to make it abundantly clear she wants to buy my aunt’s house.”
“Has she mentioned why?” Crane asked, and I think it was the first time he’d said a single word since I’d arrived. His voice sounded deeper in person, very commanding, which made it all the more refreshing that he let Martin do all the talking.
Aside from the obvious fact that she was the ranking officer here. I’d had my fair share of situations in life where, no matter how good at something I was or how much seniority I had, there was always a man around, willing to talk over me and tell me how to do my job. It was unfair of me to assume a small-town police officer would be that kind of person, but it was nice to be proven wrong of my assumptions.
Auntie Eudora used to say, “That’s the thing about assumptions: they make you look really dumb.” She knew perfectly well that wasn’t the phrase, but I liked her version a lot better.
“She hasn’t given me any reason for her interest,” I answered at last. “Only several reasons why I should stop saying no.” When Martin raised her eyebrow, I realized how my words could be taken, so I waved my hand quickly. “I don’t mean to say she threatened me. She just tried to tell me that, as a single person, I didn’t need a house that big, and I could live in the apartment upstairs—that sort of thing.”
“The apartment where Mr. Lofting lives?”
I nodded. “I don’t think she knew Rich was up there. I certainly didn’t.”
Martin made a note and slowly sipped her tea before asking her next question. “You didn’t know someone was living in an apartment you own?”
“I know how that might sound, but I’ve only been here for two days, and I’ve just been wrapping up a lot of things related to Eudora’s estate, and the store specifically. Rich has been staying there for free up until recently, so it’s not a huge surprise that there weren’t records of it that sparked my attention. He’s an old family friend, and Eudora had been letting him stay during his divorce.” I snapped my mouth shut. Maybe I was giving them too much detail. Did the cops really need to know about Rich’s failed marriage?
Martin jotted down a few more notes but seemed satisfied. “We’d like you to take a look around tonight, or in the morning, and see if there’s anything missing. From what we can tell, the shop wasn’t disturbed, and he died before he was able to get inside, but on the off chance you notice anything out of the ordinary, give me a call.” She handed me a plain white business card with her name on it: Patricia Martin.
“Thank you, Detective Martin.”
“You can call me Patsy,” she said with a small smile. “I’m terribly sorry about what’s happened here tonight, and I want you to know we’ll get to the bottom of this.”
Coming from a big city, it was easy to dismiss this, but for some reason her assurances gave me comfort. Maybe that was naive of me, or perhaps this being a small town I believed Martin would care more about finding out who did this. I wasn’t sure of the reasons, but I believed her.
I thanked her and Crane profusely, though for some reason it bothered me that Crane hadn’t even touched his tea, which now sat cold in its pretty porcelain cup. Martin had managed to drink hers entirely, even though she’d been the one doing most of the talking.
Sure, tea wasn’t for everyone, but this was really, really good tea!
After walking them both to the back exit and assuring them several times that I had Patsy’s card and wouldn’t hesitate to use it, I locked the door behind them and made my way back into the tea shop. I took the cups back to the kitchen behind the tea counter, hidden from customer sight, and rinsed all the dishes, carefully setting them aside to dry.
It was in that mindless, hazy state of barely paying attention and running mostly on autopilot that I noticed a row of glass containers above the sink that I had never really looked at before. One row was dark brown bottles, another dark green, and a third a beautiful teal sea-glass blue.
Each one bore a hand-drawn label that looked like it had come fresh off a feather quill.
“Lover’s Walk,” one bottle said. “Lady Luck,” said another.
I picked up a green bottle labeled “Money Tree” and twisted the lid off the top. It was filled with tea, which shouldn’t have surprised me, but inside was also a stack of small papers that had the same writing on them as the label.
Eudora’s writing, but fancier.
Steep one heaping spoonful overnight in boiled rainwater, and drink on the night of the full moon. Think of your greatest financial needs and open yourself up to unexpected rewards.
I sniffed the tea and smelled the licorice-rich scent of dried basil, thyme, and something sweeter. I peered into the jar and could make out two distinct white flowers. Chamomile was the easiest to recognize, but I had to pull the other one out and rub it between my fingers before the scent revealed itself to me.
Honeysuckle.
The mixture smelled incredible and made all the hairs on the back of my arms stand up when I sniffed it. This wasn’t like any other tea I’d ever encountered before. The ingredients were all things Eudora had mixed into the blends offered out front, but it was impossible not to notice that this was something entirely unique from those.
I put the lid back on the jar, and though I was tempted to go through some of the others to see what kinds of unique ingredients they contained and brewing directions they called for, it was getting late, and I’d have plenty of time to explore them the next day when the shop was open.
But these new discoveries, combined with all the things I’d found in the basement earlier, had the gears in my mind churning again.
Had Auntie Eudora really been a witch? Was this something other people had known about? It seemed likely if she’d had these teas at The Earl’s Study—and yet no one had made any accusations of her being an actual witch since I’d been home. It had always just been town gossip, in the grand tradition of tales told about old spinsters who lived alone with their cats. I’d always assumed only children really believed she was a witch, but now I had my doubts.
The idea left me wondering if that had something to do with the reason her home and shop were clearly the target of some unpleasant focus.
Just what had Dierdre and her goon been looking for?
Chapter Thirteen
The next morning came a lot earlier than I would have liked, as my phone’s alarm blared at me starting at six o’clock. For a bleary, bewildered moment, I couldn’t remember why on earth I would have set such an unfair time for myself—it was still dark outside for goodness sake!—until I remembered I had to pick up my bakery order from Amy by seven.
I was itching to ask someone else if Eudora’s more, shall we say, specialized blends were common knowledge in town. Did everyone in town think she’d been a witch? I’d certainly teased her about it when I was a kid, because of her old house and penchant for trusting herbal remedies, but I’d also bristled when other children called her the same thing.
It was a lot to wrap my head around.
Bob was curled up at the small of my back, acting like my own personal hot water bottle, and I was loath to leave him given how cozy we both were under the duvet.
The only thing that could tempt me out was the promise of Amy’s incredible baking—and maybe one of those chocolate hazelnut lattes she’d made me the day before. I had a full workday ahead and wasn’t entirely sure what that would look like. The shop had been closed for weeks, so either it would be completely quiet, or everyone would want to come in and see if I’d totally changed the place since Eudora died.
I wasn’t sure if they’d be relieved or disappointed that I was leaving it exactly the same, but it didn’t feel right trying to mess with something that was already pretty perfect in my estimation. I had a quick shower, hoping it would help wake me up, then hurriedly dressed in a pair of dark wash jeans and an off-the-shoulder dove-gray sweater that had a pretty ribbon tie detail on the back.
I called it my off-duty ballerina sweater.
As I was putting on my watch, I noticed something on the dresser I was sure hadn’t been there before: a necklace on a long silver chain, with a simple pendant that was a large, dark gray polished stone. When I held it up to the light, it looked either brownish or greenish, depending which way I moved it.
I had absolutely never seen this necklace before in my life, yet it was sitting next to my watch and earrings on the dresser, as if it had always been mine.
At this point in my weird week, I was beyond asking questions. Someone wanted me to have this necklace—be it Eudora, the house, or even Bob the cat—and I was starting to believe every one of those options was possible. There was also the much more realistic possibility that it had been here the whole time, and I’d just overlooked it during the stress of the move. I slipped the necklace over my head and rubbed my thumb over the smooth, cool stone.
It was pretty, and it matched my outfit. Who was I to turn it away?
I curled the ends of my hair and pulled it into a high ponytail, did a slightly too hasty job of applying some makeup—who knew when I might bump into someone like, say, Rich?—and was out the front door by quarter to seven, having fed Bob at the last minute. I hated leaving him and might ask Imogen if she minded the idea of an in-store cat. If those trendy cat cafés could get away with having animals and drinks in one place, surely there was no reason I couldn’t let Bob lounge by the store fireplace all day.
I arrived at the Sugarplum Fairy right before seven, and though the sign on the door said closed, the lights were bright inside, and I could smell fresh bread as soon as I got out of the car. I’d decided to park in front of The Earl’s Study rather than behind, just for today, because I still couldn’t quite shake the reminder of seeing a dead body the last time I’d been back there.
I shuddered just to think of it again.
After tapping on the glass door, I waited a moment for Amy to appear, and when she did, her smile at seeing me was bright enough that I didn’t mind getting up so early. She had the kind of calming aura that my aunt had had, and it chased away a lot of the dark thoughts lingering in my mind from last night.
“Well, good morning,” she declared brightly. “Ready to tackle your first big day?”
“I would be a bit more ready if things hadn’t gotten off to such a dramatic start last night.” I’m not sure why I wanted to tell her so badly, but it seemed likely she would find out sooner or later since news traveled faster than light in this town.
“Oh gosh, what craziness, right?” She started making a latte for me without even being asked. Bless her. “They were still back there, scouring for clues and whatnot, when I got in this morning. Guess they were pretty surprised to see someone show up at three.” Amy laughed at this, as if her accidentally showing up at a crime scene wasn’t an incredibly upsetting way to start her morning. “They obviously couldn’t tell me too much, but from the questions they asked, I guess it sounds like the guy was trying to break into your store?”
The espresso machine hissed loudly as she steamed the milk.
“I wish I knew what he wanted.” I briefly explained to her that I’d been able to identify the man and his connection to Deirdre, which really just created more questions than answers. “Do you think my aunt had something in her shop they were after?”
Amy set the latte on the counter in front of me, her face temporarily pensive as she considered my question. I desperately wanted to ask if perhaps something magical had been the reason for Deirdre’s interest, but I didn’t know how to bring that up without sounding totally mad.
“Your aunt didn’t exactly have millions stashed away in that store, but she has things in there that I think some people might value more than money.” Amy leveled a meaningful stare in my direction, and I wondered if she, too, was trying to say something without exactly saying it.
“Like rare books?”
She laughed. “I think you’ll understand what I mean when you find it. Let’s just say there’s a good reason your aunt’s shop was so popular and did so well, and it has nothing to do with the discounted paperbacks.”
I bit my tongue, not sure if I wanted to take the plunge and just outright ask the question, because frankly I was pretty sure it was going to make me sound completely and utterly insane if I did, no matter how big the hints Amy was dropping.
“Have you ever bought anything from her?”
Amy smirked at me. “You mean besides all the tea I keep behind the counter?”
I nodded.
“Of course. I think almost everyone in town has, at one point or another. Whether they’ll admit it to you or not.” She shrugged. “No one wants to say they bought a magic potion or a spell, you know? They want to say they bought some lovely tea; read a piece of paper; and then, on some completely unrelated note, something good happened to them afterward.”
“So those were special teas,” I declared excitedly, almost dropping my latte on the floor from sheer enthusiasm and relief. I stopped myself short of using the “W”-word, because I really wasn’t ready to make that mental leap just yet, but it was getting a bit hard to ignore the big neon signs pointing me in that direction.
Amy laughed brightly. “Is that a surprise to you? All the time you spent at her house? All the cups of tea she ever made you? Surely you must have been a little curious about some of her concoctions or the incredibly specific way she insisted certain blends be made?”
I thought back, trying to remember my youth and all the bitter blends I had been expected to swallow. Once, it had been sitting on a back porch, exactly at sunset, after I’d skinned a knee. Other times she would send me sachets of rose tea when I was in college, but insist I leave a rose quartz crystal in the cup when I drank it.
I had thought her instructions were whimsical or just a funny old lady being a funny old lady at the time. Heck, half the women in my yoga classes in Seattle talked about charging their crystals, thanks to some article or another they’d read on a lifestyle blog. The stuff Eudora did had been weird, but I’d never really put the pieces together, to think she might be an actual witch.
I still didn’t believe she was a witch—not a broom-flying, cauldron-stirring Halloween staple—but it was pretty evident she fit the bill of a new age, hippie-dippy Wiccan, at the very least.
“It makes so much more sense now that I actually know. Wow.” I sipped my latte, which was still much too hot, then added, “Didn’t it bother her, the way all the kids in town would call her that like it was a bad thing? Especially since it seemed like her goal was just to help people.”
“Oh, she thought that was hilarious. You’ve seen how she would decorate her house for Halloween. All the while I’m sure she was casting some spell or another to make sure those same kids all got home safe and didn’t get any cavities. That’s just who she was.”
I ignored her comment about protection spells but appreciated that Amy seemed to be totally fine with whatever Eudora had been doing in her spare time. I was itching to ask Amy what kind of a tea she had requested from Eudora, especially after seeing so many different kinds in the back room, but I decided that was private information, and if she wanted me to know—well, she’d have to come buy some more.
Then something else Amy had said took root in my mind. “Do you think this has anything to do with Deirdre and the dead guy? When you say there’s valuable things in the shop, you mean her special teas or other things she concocted? Could that have been what he was trying to break in and find?”
Amy set two boxes of pastry on the counter in front of me and locked eyes on mine with a meaningful stare. “All I’m saying is that when someone learns these things can be real, they will go pretty far out of their way to try using it to their own advantage.”
I stared at her, processing the dark tone of her words and thinking of the manic way Dierdre had followed me down the street on the first night I’d met her.
Chills ran down my spine.
Just what was Dierdre after, and did she have something to do with the dead man behind my shop?
Chapter Fourteen
I had never met Imogen Prater in person before and had only heard her mentioned in my weekly calls with Eudora, but the second I saw the statuesque black woman with icy-blonde strands woven through her dark braids, standing in front of The Earl’s Study, I knew exactly who she was.
When I exited Amy’s café, Imogen spotted me right away, rubbing her bare hands together for warmth before coming to help me with the boxes.
“You didn’t waste any time getting the pastry order set up again, I see.” She beamed brightly, probably as excited as I was to see what beautiful treats Amy had in the white boxes for us.
