by Leanne Leeds
“When has that ever stopped you before?” Pepper Stanford had illegal access to the police cage in the back of the Mystic’s End library—and probably a lot more places I didn’t know about (and didn’t want to know about). I found it hard to believe that she couldn’t get me to the bottle.
“This is different,” Pepper explained, frowning. “This is actual physical evidence. It’s going to go into the dungeon of the new Mystic’s End Police Department. Thanks to Martin’s generous donation toward construction costs, the place is a fortress.”
“Doesn’t Ollie have access?” I asked. “He’s the assistant coroner. Doesn’t his boss do the inquest?”
Pepper shook her head. “They shot the guy in the face. There’s really not a question; this is a murder. I suspect Bobby Newsom did the paperwork in the truck on the way back to the morgue. He doesn’t have to spend much effort on this one.”
“Okay, then how do we get near the bottle?” I asked, crossing my arms.
“Your sister is the daughter of the chief of police,” Pepper pointed out. “I’d suggest asking her for some ideas. They’ll probably be a bit more legal than mine.”
“He remembers nothing about what he’s gone through the past few months,” Gabe said as the six of us sat around the table later that afternoon. We were discussing the ways we could get our hands on the last witch bottle. “It’s not like you can just walk in and ask your father for access to the evidence room. He will not give it to you. You have no explanation for why you would want it, anyway.”
“My dad would do anything for me,” Angie said confidently.
“I disagree,” Gabe told her, his face serious. “Your father’s confused enough as it is with the political upheaval in this town of late, and the Mayor’s been all over him about the greyhound track closing, losing revenue. Not to mention his arrest of Karen, who donated thousands to the Mayor’s campaign. He is in serious cover-his-a—”
“Okay, okay, I get it.” Angie made a face. “So what do you suggest? Break into the evidence room?”
“I like her,” Pepper said cheerfully, pointing at Angie with a wink. My sister winked back.
Gabe shifted in his seat. “There’s no way you’d get in. It’s three levels down through two security systems. This isn’t a lock you can pick with a hairpin”—he glanced at Pepper—“in a few seconds.”
“Very few seconds,” Pepper agreed confidently.
“Look, as much as I hate to admit it, Gabe’s right,” Ollie agreed, looking glum. “I don’t know why a small town needs an evidence locker that’s as protected as that one is. Maybe they expected to have higher value evidence because of the track. For whatever reason, they restrict the evidence locker access. Even if I wanted to go down there, I couldn’t. I have to make an evidence request.”
“So just make an evidence request,” I said.
“And if it is a witch bottle—”
“Then I uncork it, and you send it back,” I told him, shrugging. “I don’t understand why this is so complicated. No harm, no foul, right?”
“Except that I don’t have any reason to request it anymore,” Ollie disagreed. “Bobby’s already ruled that it’s a murder. The whole thing’s been handed over to the police to investigate. Unless they ask me to test something, I don’t have any reason to ask for it. I’m still just the assistant. I can commandeer testing kits, and I get away with a lot, but murder evidence?” He shook his head. “Bobby and I work in the same room. He’d know.”
“I feel like everybody’s getting cautious in their old age.” I glared at Ollie. “A few months ago, you were hacking into security systems and stealing evidence. What the heck happened to you?”
Pepper and Ollie glanced at each other as if they had a secret.
“What’s that look?” I asked sharply.
“What look?” Ollie asked. Pepper elbowed him.
“She may lie like a champ, but you can’t. You’re too innocent-looking,” I told Ollie. “Come on, you two. Share with the class. What is this all about?”
“This is why you should always let me talk,” Pepper grumbled at Ollie. She sat up straight and sighed. “I guess you guys were going to find out eventually, anyway. Ollie’s decided to run for County Coroner in the fall,” Pepper said as Ollie bowed his head with a sheepish grin. “He has to keep his nose clean, or he could jeopardize his chances. One thing that could jeopardize his run is getting arrested for tampering with evidence. So, he’s a little more careful.”
“Congratulations, dude, that’s great!” Gabe said, clapping his best friend on the back. “I think you’ll do an outstanding job. At the very least, you can’t do a worse job than the current corner.” He smiled at Dalida and winked.
“What’s wrong with the current coroner?” she asked Gabe.
“Nothing, if you think it’s okay to eat a messy sandwich on the autopsy table.”
Dalida looked a little queasy. “Surely not while there’s a body on it.”
“No, not…” Gabe turned and raised his eyebrow at Ollie. Ollie shrugged. “Well, not that I’ve ever seen, at least.”
“This town continues to astound me,” she murmured.
“Congratulations, Ollie, I think it’s fantastic.” I smiled at him. “But it doesn’t solve our problem,” I pointed out.
The group grew quiet as everyone tried to come up with a solution.
“So, I’ve got one. We have twenty-six other matching—more or less—bottles,” Angie said. Looking around, she raised her eyebrow. “Why can’t we just say it’s part of the set and it’s our bottle? No one else is going to make a claim to it.”
Pepper leaned her chin in her hand and tapped her face with her index finger. “She’s got a point. We can just submit a claim, say the bottle is ours, and we want it back. He wasn’t whacked on the head with a bottle. That should be simple enough, and it has the side benefit of not being illegal.”
“It’s still a little illegal, but not too bad. So who makes a claim?” Ollie asked.
“It is not illegal—she’s the mystic. The bottle is meant for Fortuna to open. Fortuna owns the art shop, and she’s displaying the empty bottles in the back studio,” Angie said, turning toward me. “Every one of your students has seen them. You can claim it was here, and someone stole it. Easy peasy. No one’s going to remember whether it was twenty-six or twenty-seven bottles on the shelf, right?”
I groaned as I sat back in my chair. “If I do this, your father’s going to think I had something to do with Noble.”
“What, the murder?” Angie rolled her eyes and waved her hand at the concern. “You didn’t even know Conrad Noble.”
Gabe looked at Angie. “Before your dad worked with Fortuna, he was a bit suspicious of her.”
“So what? The woman’s a telepath. She’ll know what to say and what not to say. Besides, my dad knows that she’s my sister. She’ll walk in, fill out the paperwork, get the bottle, and we’ll be done with this. You guys are way too paranoid.” Angie’s greyhound edged his head into her lap and sighed. “This is the simplest way to get the bottle. No one risks going to jail, no one has to steal anything, no one risks their political career. I’m telling you. Easy.”
“You own the bottle,” Chief Clutterbuck said, his voice dripping with suspicion.
“Yes, sir,” I answered cheerfully. “It’s one of a set of twenty-seven. Ollie had mentioned the bottle in poor Mr. Noble’s hand when he and Pepper came over. It sounded remarkably similar to one I had on a shelf in the back of my studio. I went and checked, and it wasn’t there anymore.” The chief blinked back at me, his face echoing the disbelief I felt pouring off him and the detective with him. “So, it must be my bottle.” I pushed the claim paper forward. “I’d like it back, please.”
Detective Beau Conroe stood behind Chief Clutterbuck, listening to our conversation. He swung his handcuffs around his finger, an amused look on his face. “That bottle is evidence, Ms. Delphi,” Beulah Conroe’s son told me over Clutterbuck’s sho
ulder. “We can’t just hand it over to you on your say-so, first.”
“Second, how do we know it’s even yours?” Chief Clutterbuck added.
“I think that was actually my point, chief,” Conroe told his boss.
Clutterbuck turned and glared at him.
Detective Conroe cleared his throat and stepped back. “You said it much better, sir.”
Clutterbuck stared at the detective for a few more seconds, then turned back to face me.
“I brought a picture of all twenty-seven bottles,” I said, sliding a doctored photo next to the form. Since the image wasn’t really evidence of anything, Ollie felt comfortable manipulating it to place the twenty-seventh bottle on the shelf next to the others. “See, right there,” I pointed, tapping the corner.
I could feel that neither believed me.
I could also feel that neither could find any reason I would lie.
“Detective Conroe is right about one thing,” Chief Clutterbuck said as he reached forward to gather up the photo and the form. “Conrad Noble had your bottle in a dead man’s grip. Literally. It was the last thing he touched in the world, and we’re going to have to keep it for evidence until we solve this case.”
“Evidence of what?” I asked incredulously. “The bottle didn’t shoot him in the head.”
A wave of stormy anger passed over Chief Clutterbuck’s face. “Now you listen here,” he started, lowering his voice so the other officers milling about couldn’t hear him. “You may think just because you’re another daughter of that horrible Karen White that you have some kind of special standing here, but you don’t. I know that my daughter’s moved in with you, but I don’t know what game you’re playing.” He shifted closer as his eyes narrowed. “What I can tell you is that your mother is one of the most conniving women God Almighty made the mistake of creating. You may be like my daughter, but you could also be like your mother. And I don’t trust you.”
At another time, I probably would have been angry at the baseless accusations. This wasn’t another time, though, and my heart went out to him. I could feel Terrance Clutterbuck was desperately worried about his daughter. Her ties to Dalida and me were things he hadn’t counted on, and he didn’t understand. The chief wanted to believe, as she did, that we were three sisters who’d found one another. That we were all victims of my mother.
But he didn’t know if he could trust Dalida or me.
He knew he couldn’t trust Karen.
And all he knew for sure was that we’d stolen away his daughter.
“Then work with me,” I told the chief, the idea coming before I had much chance to think it through. “You know that I’ve solved cases before, and you and I have worked together before. Reluctantly, I’ll admit. You know some of what I can do.”
“I still don’t know that I believe all that psychic hokum,” he answered gruffly.
“Well, you don’t have to. You can pretend that you do, and we’ll get to know one another,” I told him with a soft smile. “Maybe if you get to know me, you’ll see that I care about Angie, and I would never do anything to hurt her. If you and I get along? I know it would make her happy.”
He winced at my assumption. “And what do you get out of this?”
“I get to know my sister’s father, and I get my bottle back.” I held out my hand. “What do you say?”
Chief Clutterbuck was a storm of confusion. Over the year or so I’d lived in Mystic’s End, I realized what a complicated man he was. Corrupt, yes. Politically savvy? For sure. But right now, I remembered things he didn’t remember anymore. I remembered he could be a good man, and it made me sad that my mother wiped his memory and made it so he couldn’t.
With all the knowledge of magic (and of me) that he had learned gone, we were starting over.
“There’s something about you, Ms. Delphi. My brain says I shouldn’t trust you, but my gut says I can.” Clutterbuck slowly reached his hand forward and shook mine. “All right, you’ve got yourself a deal. You help me solve this case, and I’ll get you your bottle back.” He clutched my hand tight and tugged it aggressively. “But if I find out you have anything to do with Conrad Noble’s murder, or you’re playing me, I’ll throw you in the cell next to your mother. You got me?”
I gulped, then nodded.
Four
I shivered in the cool evening breeze. For one moment, I contemplated ringing the outrageously loud doorbell to Martin’s huge house, but the ostentatious gongs made me cringe. As usual, I knocked on the thick door and waited. Since my boyfriend was a vampire with super-senses, he would hear it.
Instead of Chris, Martin’s Aunt Addie answered the door.
“Fortuna! Sweetheart, you’re a little late. Jeeves came up from the basement hours ago.” Stepping back, she waved me in. Addie was in her sixties, and she pulled her long gray hair back in a bun. “He’s on the veranda with Martin and Angie. They’re all quite excited about the last bottle. I am, too, of course.”
“I figured you would be. I really hope that this is the last thing we need to get your sister out of that rock.” I stepped in, and she closed the door behind me. “I wasn’t coming to see Chris for breakfast or anything. Well, his breakfast. Martin and Angie invited me over for dinner, so I think I’m on time.”
“Oh, that’s right, he wants to go by Chris now, doesn’t he,” Aunt Addie murmured. “I’ve been calling that vampire Jeeves for so many years, I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to calling him Chris. He doesn’t even seem like a Chris. He seems like a Jeeves. Anyway, do you really think we will get Anna out of her prison once the bottle is uncorked?”
“I talked to Miss Bessie and Mary and Anna.” Aunt Addie led me down a hallway lit by faintly glowing lamps, toward the back of the house. “Miss Bessie is absolutely sure there are only twenty-seven bottles, and we are pretty sure the bottle found this afternoon is that last one.”
“Do we know who’s in it?”
“There is no record of who’s captured in the bottles,” I replied. We stopped just before the glass door leading to the backyard. Clearly intending to finish this conversation before she brought me out, Aunt Addie turned to face me and stared expectantly. “Mostly, it seems like the ghosts were nothing more than descendants that held some level of magical power. Once we talked to them all, there’s no evidence of some town conspiracy the way Miss Bessie was told.”
“Except with my sister.” Aunt Addie gave me a stern look.
“Yes, well, your sister was a different story altogether, unfortunately.”
“I always knew that Anna would get herself in trouble,” the older woman said, shaking her head. “My sister could tumble into a rock after passing a warning sign about the hard place.” Addie’s voice was soft, but her eyes were sharp and judgmental. “At least she had fun before stumbling into the consequences of her actions. I haven’t had one whit of fun since she did it, but that’s fine.” Aunt Addie gave a long-suffering sigh. “My sister and her predicaments.”
“I think Anna is very aware of what a great sister you are and what a fantastic son she has.” I smiled.
“Don’t try to soothe my hurt feelings, Fortuna.” Aunt Addie shook her finger good-naturedly at me. “I’ve been saving up a lecture for my sister for a few decades now. I’m keeping all this steam, thank you very much.” She reached out and took my hand in both of hers, squeezing affectionately. “We’re fortunate to have found you.” Then she winked. “The vampire especially.”
I blushed.
“Go on, go with your friends and your sister,” Addie said, opening the back door and waving me out into the night. “It’s a lovely evening; you don’t need to be jabber-jawing with an old woman inside when there’s wine and food under the stars. Oh, to be young again.” She winked.
As I walked out, I thought about how much calmer everyone was. It was almost as if everyone involved could sense the end was near, the issue almost solved, the world almost righted. Since my mother was in jail, the threat had passed—th
at was probably the reason everyone was so nonchalant about the last bottle and about freeing Anna.
That must be it.
“Do you really think this is wise?” Chris asked as I finished telling everyone about my conversation with Chief Clutterbuck. “The man clearly doesn’t trust you, and I don’t know that becoming the unofficial police psychic is a good way to get him to do so.”
“I think we need that bottle. And Angie’s father is so confused.” I turned from the sparkling view on the veranda. “I mean, I don’t think he even knows that he’s confused, but he is. Our mother punched a hole in his memories. His ability to tie this all together…The facts in his head are like Swiss cheese. She removed some recollections but not others, some knowledge but not other knowledge.” I took a sip of wine. “It was a messy spell. Which stands to reason, considering she was in a panic and just reacted.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. Dad’ll come around eventually,” Angie shrugged. My sister held a glass of sparkling water. “He just has to work it all out in his own time. Hey, he doesn’t want to kill Martin anymore. That’s progress.”
“Speaking of progress,” Martin said, turning toward me. “We only have two dogs left to re-home. And to be honest, I’m not sure they’re going anywhere. Hoyt is quite attached to them. He may adopt them both.”
“Hoyt?” I asked, surprised. When I first met Hoyt Abernathy, I was sure the guy was an animal abuser. Turns out he had a pretty evil father, and once dear old dad was hauled off to jail? Hoyt made a lot of progress as a human being. I turned toward Angie. “Hoyt really seems to have turned his life around since the two of you pushed Spike down the stairs and stuffed him in a wall.”
“You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?” Angie said, sticking her tongue out.
“Yeah, no, probably not.” I stuck my tongue out at her.
“Wow. Fortuna, did you just make a joke?” Angie stared at me, eyes wide. Turning to Martin, she tilted her head. “How could you have ever thought about dating Fortuna? I mean, seriously?”
