Miraculous Mintwood Magic

by Addison Creek

  “Well I didn’t do it, if that’s what you’re wondering. I never even thought about it. My mother was so relieved that I had married somebody, I never would have done anything to jeopardize my marriage. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I couldn’t stand him. But he was rich, so I didn’t really care that he was also annoying. I figured that out the two of us, I would always win,” she said.

  The kind of marriage where one party had to out-annoy the other party was not the kind of marriage I wanted, I told myself silently.

  “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help,” said Mrs. Earle, starting to walk away from me again. In the distance I could hear the engine of the van starting up.

  “Wait. Whom did you blackmail?” I asked her.

  “You mean other than Mr. Oakley?” she said.

  Stunned, I watched her walk away. I didn’t suppose Greer’s mother was actually a friend of the real estate agent. I was simply surprised that he had tolerated blackmail for so many years. Unfortunately, it gave him an excellent motive for murder.

  Mrs. Earle was barely visible once she was back in the sunlight. Just as she as disappeared around the corner without a backward glance, Tom appeared. He waved as he saw me standing under the tree.

  “Is that where the stray cat disappeared?” he called out.

  I was about to ask him what he was talking about when I remembered what I had told him I was doing there in the first place. I had lied an awful lot in the past ten minutes, and wasn’t going to stop now. “Yes, I think so,” I called out. “I mean, I guess it could’ve been somebody’s pet cat, but a cat definitely went into these bushes.”

  “I don’t think we’re going to find her if she went in there,” he said.

  “I agree. Sorry for bothering you about it when you’re busy,” I said.

  He shrugged. “It’s all right. They took the body away. The Applewood officer was just dropping off some paperwork. Funny business and small towns. So many of us have multiple jobs. It’s sad that Mrs. Earle and her husband were both murdered. You’d have to think that they were both involved in something serious.”

  “It sounds like they might have been,” I agreed.

  He glanced sideways at me. “I don’t mind saying this to you because you aren’t a reporter. Detective Cutter thinks this is the strangest case he’s ever worked on. He’s been here for a long time, but he just doesn’t see why such a prominent, successful real estate agent was murdered. Then, all these years later, and right after his body is discovered, his wife is murdered. The only trouble is that nobody thinks she killed him.”

  “Is there any proof of that?” I asked.

  “Yes. She was in Europe on an extended vacation. At the time they looked into whether she had come back secretly. He was listed as a missing person, but she was sure something had happened to him. There was no proof that she had come back, and there was a lot of evidence that she was on the French Riviera. I should be so lucky,” he said.

  “It’s not exactly lucky to have your husband murdered and not to know what happened to him,” I pointed out. This was the first time I had heard that she’d had an alibi. It would seem that Detective Cutter might not be sharing everything about this investigation with me, just as we had speculated. Then again, I hadn’t really suspected the wife anyhow, and her murder had made it seem extremely likely that someone else was involved. Besides, her husband thought she was too annoying to bother to kill anyone. If he didn’t think she did it, I believed him.

  “You have a good point there,” said Tom, seeming to consider my notion carefully. “I don’t mean to sound cruel. I’m just saying that nobody thinks she did it. Now we have a murderer on the loose who’s perfectly happy to kill more than once, and that can’t be good.”

  “That’s for sure,” I said. “But Detective Cutter is very good at what he does. I’m sure he’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  To my surprise, Tom snorted. “Everybody around here knows who the real detective is. And the title doesn’t start with detective,” he grinned at me.

  All I could do was blush.

  Tom had to get back to work and I had things to do as well, so we said our goodbyes and I made my way to the front of the town hall and headed for my car. I decided to head straight home, since my side trip to chase Mrs. Earle’s ghost had taken up a lot of time. Unfortunately, it was my day for running into people on the main street of our little town. Just as I reached the Beetle, I saw two people walking toward the Daily Brew.

  I stopped dead. There were the Wolf siblings.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I toyed with the question of what to do next, knowing that I should just go home. The Wolfs hadn’t seen me, and I had a lot to do. Besides, Greer had been in an accident and she probably needed to talk. Then again, I didn’t think my friend was even at home, and I desperately wanted to see Jasper.

  Suddenly the uncontrollable urge took over. I knew what was going to happen before my feet started moving. Of course I was going to go into the Daily Brew and get a muffin, a scone, or whatever they had left in the bake case to take home. And I would accidentally run into Jasper and his sister.

  When I reached the door of the café, I nearly walked into Keith of Mintwood Mucking, who was coming out holding a large coffee. “Lemmi, good to see you. It’s been a while. Need a new backpack?” he asked.

  I was surprised and stopped dead. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

  “We’re having a sale. I’m trying to get ahead of the spring sales. I know Andre at the art gallery is going to have one too. If you ask me, his items are too expensive anyhow. Who pays so much money for a bunch of random brushstrokes?” he asked.

  I figured the real point of this rant was that nobody had asked him. He and Andre hated each other and were always in competition for Main Street attention. Secretly, everyone in town knew that one would miss the other should one of the businesses close or move.

  Nodding a goodbye to Keith, I made my way into the café. As he walked away, Keith told me to come by the store any time. He didn’t seem to mind that I hated hiking. He figured everybody was a potential convert to the outdoor life. No matter how long he had known a person, there was always a chance that she’d come to her senses.

  My heart was hammering in my chest as I stepped inside and saw Jasper and Garnett at the counter, being served by Mrs. Barnett. At first I didn’t pay any attention to the one person in line between us.

  Then Frannie turned around.

  Frannie was well known around town. One of a pair of troublemaking sisters, she was of the belief that when you got to a certain age, you got a pass for poor behavior. She figured that if she ever got caught breaking into someone’s house, she could claim to be a little old lady. Totally innocent. She couldn’t be blamed for anything. Most people didn’t bother to disabuse her of that notion, all the more since she never stole anything too valuable. In short, Frannie provided some of the excellent local color around Mintwood. The color of trouble.

  As I stationed myself behind her in line, she turned around to see who had come up behind her. Jasper and Garnett still had their backs to me.

  “Hello, dear. How are you?” said Frannie.

  “I’m good. How are you?” I asked.

  “I’m excellent. Thank you. What brings you here so late in the day? I thought you had an excellent baker in your own household,” she said.

  She was referring to the fact that Greer was such a great baker that she had won a competition at our annual fair. Ever since then the cat had been out of the bag about her abilities. Paws probably wouldn’t like that expression, now that I thought about it.

  “She’s working. She doesn’t have a lot of time to bake most days,” I said.

  “Shame. Next time she makes those currant scones, bring some by,” said Frannie.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Next,” Mrs. Barnett called out. Finished ordering, Jasper glanced over his shoulder. His eyes found me immediately and he gave me a small smile. When he d
idn’t look away, Garnett looked to follow his gaze.

  “Lemmi! Good to see you again,” she said.

  The State of Maine is known as Vacationland. In keeping with our reputation, we have a lot of visitors, and they usually reveal themselves as such without even realizing it. They look different, their accents are different, they go through life at a different speed. Garnett was clearly what Mainers call “from away,” a city girl through and through. At the moment she was wearing black boots and a black skirt with a green blouse tucked tidily into it. She looked more ready for meetings than for an afternoon coffee. Her dark hair cascaded over one shoulder and I found myself once again jealous of how shiny it was.

  “Good to see you, too. What brings you downtown?” I asked her.

  “I was complaining about the coffee my brother has at the barn. The place is beautiful, but they just make instant. He said the best coffee in town was here. I insisted on coming immediately.”

  “It isn’t the best coffee in town, it’s the best coffee in the county,” said Frannie. Local townsfolk had no problem cutting in on conversations that had started without them. Garnett looked delighted to be talking to the sweet old lady. “I’m so glad to have your opinion,” she said.

  “It’s not an opinion. It’s fact. We’ve won awards for it,” said Mrs. Barnett. She tilted her head toward the wall behind her, where several awards for her great-tasting coffee were displayed. I tried to remember if they had been from a competition at the fair, but I couldn’t. The wall was so littered with stuff that I had never even noticed those particular items before.

  “I’m excited to try the coffee, then,” said Garnett with a smile.

  “Out-of-staters always like it,” said Frannie.

  “Don’t forget, I grew up here. Are you now calling me an out-of-stater?” Garnett asked.

  Frannie wrinkled her nose at the other woman. “You don’t live here anymore. You also don’t know where the coffee is. One would think you might be an out-of-stater.”

  “Don’t try to argue with Frannie. She’s never wrong,” said Jasper with a smile.

  “Exactly right, young man. I do try to be accurate in my assessments,” Frannie said.

  Like her assessments of which stores to break into, I thought.

  “Here are your coffees,” said Mrs. Barnett, handing Jasper and Garnett their drinks. As she took Frannie’s order, Garnett sipped the coffee and her whole face lit up.

  “This is unbelievably good coffee. How do you do it?” she asked.

  Mrs. Barnett blinked, looking as if she wasn’t used to such effusive praise. “We roast the beans right here in town. Our own secret process. It’s all local all the time.”

  “It’s delicious. You could sell the stuff in New York and people would line up to buy it,” said Garnett.

  “Of course they would. There’s a market for most anything,” said Frannie.

  No one had an answer for that one, so Jasper changed the subject.

  “Would you like to join us?” he asked me.

  Garnett gave him a slight look of surprise. They were holding to-go cups, and I assumed they’d planned to leave once they got their drinks.

  “Sure, for a few minutes,” I agreed.

  After I had placed my order for three scones, I joined Jasper and his sister at the table by the window. That was unusual right off the bat; we always sat in the back of the café. I told myself it was just because Garnett wanted to see what was going on along Main Street.

  “How’s it going?” Jasper asked.

  He didn’t exactly look uncomfortable, but he wasn’t at ease, either. That wasn’t so surprising given that his sister didn’t come around very often. They were close, but he would want her approval. Given that he didn’t even know if he approved of me, the situation was rather difficult.

  “Pretty well. We’ve been trying to find the town stray for the past few nights, but it isn’t going well,” I said.

  Garnett raised her eyebrows. Clearly she had never heard of such a thing. “Have you found him?”

  “At first we thought the cat was a boy, but then we decided it was a girl,” I said. “And no, we haven’t found her. She was hanging out at the abandoned house across the street from where I live, but when we went over there last night we didn’t see any sign of her,” I explained.

  Garnett was frowning at me gently. “Sounds like you burn the candle at both ends. You stay up late and you get up early.”

  I gulped and remembered that she’d found us snooping around the Hayview development at the crack of dawn.

  “I do what I need to do. The postmistress is very concerned that the cat be found,” I said.

  “Of course she is. We’ve had a lot of strays around here recently. We must take care of the little animals,” said Jasper.

  “Yes, exactly. I’m sure if we were to find the stray, she’d go to a good home,” I said.

  Jasper leaned forward. “I like that abandoned house across the street. It has good bones and a good structure. Beautiful porch.”

  I glared at him. We had been having an argument about my falling down porch for a long time. Everyone thought I was waiting until it had actually fallen down to get it fixed, but to me it was just never one of the most important things that had to get done. I felt certain that it would happen eventually. I just wasn’t looking forward to a bunch of strangers working at the house.

  “You always have a good eye for houses. I guess it’s the contractor in you,” said Garnett.

  “I think at one point we were considering buying that house, but in the end we didn’t. It would have been pretty expensive to fix it up,” Jasper said. I was surprised that he was actually taking that house seriously. I had always thought about it as something that just was, and hadn’t seen its potential until recently.

  Unsurprisingly, our next topic was the murder case. Or cases.

  “Is there any news on Mr. Earle’s murder?” Jasper asked.

  “We’re still investigating,” I said. “I just found out that his wife had an alibi for the time when he went missing all those years ago. I didn’t think she killed him anyway, but confirmation that she wasn’t around leaves us back at square one. At least with such an old murder, the town can have confidence that people aren’t in danger from a deranged killer,” I said.

  “But the murder of his wife suggests that the killer is still at large in the area,” said Garnett. “Maybe they aren’t a danger to the general population, but they still have to be stopped.”

  “We certainly intend to stop them,” I said. “She didn’t slip and fall any more than he ran away. The family was definitely targeted.” In so public a place, I didn’t really want to say more, and I was pretty sure Jasper understood that. Basically, it had to come back to the real estate agency. Mrs. Earle had admitted blackmailing the place for years, and then, when her husband’s body was finally found, she herself was killed. At this point I was assuming that her death hadn’t had anything to do with Charlie’s visit.

  I knew three people from the real estate agency. I was reasonably certain that one of them was a killer. Now I just had to figure out which one, and prove it. But I wasn’t going to say any of that to Jasper and Garnett yet.

  “How is the PR disaster on your end?” I asked Jasper.

  He shrugged. “It’s not ideal. You don’t want to build on a site where there was a murder, but I’m hoping that by the time we finish with the property people will have somewhat forgotten. Also, depending on how all of this shakes out, we’d like to do some sort of tribute to Mr. Earle.”

  He stopped there and swallowed. Garnett gave him a sidelong look, then said, “Since he won’t say it I will. No one is blaming him for all of this.” Her voice had taken on an edge, and I wondered who she was talking about. Maybe members of the board had complained that as soon as Jasper took over there was a crisis. I didn’t really think that was fair, and I was glad to hear that Garnett didn’t either.

  I looked at Jasper and raised my e
yebrows questioningly.

  “I can’t really be blamed for this debacle. When the purchasing process started and the property was cleared, I wasn’t even involved yet. We were consulting a bit with other local businessmen, like Paul and Pencil. I was brought in later.”

  “I never liked Paul. He always undervalued things. He never offered enough money in his business dealings,” said Garnett.

  “He was willing to pay what he was willing to pay. Mostly he was willing to walk away from deals,” said Jasper.

  “He’s still willing to walkway from deals,” said his sister.

  “Of course he is. That’s his business model. He’s made enough and he owns enough so that now he can walk away whenever he wants to,” said Jasper.

  Garnett rubbed her temples and looked a bit concerned. “I see what you’re saying. The trouble is that we’ve already followed through on this deal. Do you really think that some good PR work will be enough to save this property from a murder?”

  “I think it will be, depending somewhat on how this case is solved. We can make this development work. Locals want it to succeed. Everyone would like to see this part of town revitalized,” he said.

  I watched this exchange between the siblings with fascination. Jasper’s sister spoke intelligently and she knew the players. Clearly she had been paying attention to the Wolf Corporation’s business for many years, even if it was from a distance. Jasper respected her views but also knew that he was good at what he did. Everyone knew that. I was relieved to hear that he wasn’t being blamed for the discovery of a dead body at the development. He had just taken over a new and difficult position. If he were blamed, his new job would be all that much harder.

  Still, I hadn’t addressed the fact that his taking over this position had probably contributed to the current failed state of our relationship. I told myself I’d definitely have to give more thought to that angle on the situation.

  “We should probably get going,” said Garnett, glancing at her watch. She had finished her coffee and was looking into an empty cup.

  “You’re right. We don’t want to miss the meeting with Tyler,” said Jasper.