Cold as a Witch's Toffee

by Sara Bourgeois

  We went inside and the first thing I spotted was Laney at the bar. No one was sitting with her, and in fact, it looked like everyone was giving her a wide berth.

  Probably not the reaction she’d been after given that she was dripping in even more diamond jewelry, and her dress was both so low-cut that I was surprised her bosom wasn’t falling out while at the same time, it was so high-cut that if she moved the wrong way, I would have seen her entire undercarriage. She was definitely looking for attention.

  “So, how many of these folks are witches?” I leaned into Rowan as we walked and whispered in his ear.

  “Not many. We have our own place. Lots more fun than this,” he said with a smile.

  “Are you going to take me there?”

  “I’m still trying to decide if you can handle it,” he said and elbowed me playfully in the side. “You might be too scandalized.”

  I was going to say something more, but Laney looked up and locked eyes her on us. I expected her to get up and leave, but she just sat there and ordered another drink. Rowan and I took a stool on either side of her.

  “What do you want?” Her voice was slurred.

  “We want to talk to you about Lukas,” Rowan said before I could say anything.

  Laney whipped around, and even from the side, I could tell she was glaring at him. Still, she had her chest thrust in his direction. I noted that Rowan had the same effect even on drunk women who hated him. It was like he was irresistible.

  “He’s dead,” she said as if that was the answer to anything we could possibly ask.

  “And we’re sorry for your loss,” I said softly.

  “No, you aren’t,” she hissed at me. “You’re the one…”

  I cut her off. “Don’t say I killed him, Laney. It’s not true.”

  She turned her attention back to Rowan. “Why are you here?”

  “We thought we’d get a drink, and you looked lonely.” Rowan’s answer was complete garbage, but even I sort of believed him. Again, it was something soothing in his voice. It made you want to believe him.

  “I’m fine,” Laney said.

  “You look beautiful,” Rowan countered.

  I knew he was just laying it on thick so she’d talk to us, but I felt my stomach knot with jealousy. Ugh. I knew I was going to have to get a handle on that or having Rowan around so much was going to be a pain in the butt.

  It’s not like I could just distance myself from him either. For one thing, it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t his fault that women fawning all over him make me green with envy. Well, it was kinda his fault, but not enough to where I could be mad. For another thing, the powers that be had decided he was my magical babysitter. It’s not like I could just ask for a different one because he was too attractive. Oh, and he was also one of my oldest friends. Nope, what I had to do was get a grip.

  “Really?” Laney purred at him, but she also slurred. She purr-slurred at him. Plurred? Slurrped?

  “That dress hits you in all of the right places.”

  I rolled my eyes so hard that it nearly gave me a headache. Laney wasn’t looking at me, so she didn’t see it. Rowan was, and he bit his bottom lip. I interpreted it as him trying not to laugh, but Laney must have seen it as a come on.

  “You want to take this somewhere else? Somewhere we can be alone without the riffraff?” She pointed her thumb over her shoulder at me.

  “I haven’t even had a drink yet. Let’s start there,” Rowan said and winked at her. “Bartender.”

  The bartender made his way down the bar and took Rowan’s drink order. “Anything for you?” he asked once he’d talked to Rowan.

  I was still feeling the buzz from the glass of wine I’d had with Rowan, but I didn’t figure one more would hurt. The walk to the tavern had dampened the effects quite a bit.

  “A Riesling, please,” I said.

  “Any in particular?” the bartender asked. “I can give you a wine menu.”

  “She’ll take the…” Then Rowan rattled off the name and vintage of a wine, and I recognized none of what he said. It might as well have been a foreign language to me.

  Once the bartender was gone, Rowan decided to start questioning Laney. “So, I hear you and Lukas were getting a divorce. You must have been having such a hard time even before his death.”

  “He worked a lot,” she said half-heartedly. “But he was going to start spending more time at home. He promised.”

  “Did he make a lot of promises?” Rowan asked. “Did he keep them?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” She knew exactly what he meant.

  “Everybody in town knew he wasn’t really working a lot,” Rowan said. “You had to know that too. What I don’t understand is why a beautiful woman like you would put up with that. You could have any man you want, so why did you fight the divorce?”

  “We had a prenup,” Laney said. “If we got divorced, I would be out on the street with a small settlement. I didn’t deserve that with all I’d endured.”

  “You certainly didn’t,” Rowan said.

  “I didn’t kill him,” Laney said as if it finally dawned on her what we were getting at. “Why would I do that and risk going to prison? He had no grounds to divorce me, and plus he promised we were going to make things right. He promised.”

  She put her head down on the bar, and I signaled to Rowan that she should leave. It was obvious she was three sheets to the wind, and I was pretty sure she was passed out on the bar.

  “You guys should get your friend out of here,” the bartender said to us.

  “She’s not our friend,” Rowan said and stood up. He had his hands up in the surrender gesture as he backed away from the passed-out Laney. “We were just here on some business.”

  “Ah, gawd. Not again,” the bartender said. “I’m so sick of her doing this. I’m calling Bethany this time.”

  Rowan and I took that as our cue to leave, and we scooted out of the tavern fast. “That got us nowhere,” I said as Rowan held the door for me.

  “Yeah, We’ll have to find another way to get the information we need.”

  “You going to take me to the place where the witches hang out?” I asked.

  “I still don’t think you’re ready for that. How about I walk you home instead?”

  The next morning, Voodoo woke me up early to get ready for work. I planned to go in and work for a few hours in the ice cream shop, and I hoped to hear any local gossip.

  After breakfast, I took a quick survey of my clothes and realized that I desperately needed to get my things from Dane. Emailing him was probably the best nonconfrontational way to go about it, so I opened up my laptop and connected to Leo’s Wi-Fi.

  “I need to find Leo’s phone,” I said to Voodoo when I’d finished the email. “Or I’m just going to have to go buy one.”

  “Have you checked his office?” Voodoo offered.

  “At the shop?”

  “No, here.”

  “I didn’t know he had an office here,” I said.

  “Follow me,” Voodoo said. I followed him out of the kitchen, through the living room, and into the entryway. “That door.” He nodded his head toward a door that I’d thought was a coat closet.

  “I thought that was a closet,” I said sheepishly.

  “It’s not.”

  I opened the door and stepped into a hallway with doors on either side. Voodoo followed me through. It seemed so strange that so much could lie on the other side of a door that I’d thought was a small closet. Mentally, I went back out to the front of the house to try and picture the location from the outside. Sure enough, the house was large enough on that side to hold the space. That meant there was more upstairs too…

  “How did I not know this could be here?”

  “Magic house is magic,” Voodoo answered. “So, are you going to check his office for a phone so we can go to work?”

  Leo’s office was the first door on the left. I walked into the room and instantly felt a change in the air. “Somet
hing’s different in here,” I said.

  “Leo kept his craft pretty well under wraps. He focused on growing his business and interacting with both the witches and the humans of Knox Hills as the owner of Nutties. That being said, there are some pretty powerful magical tools in this room. What you are feeling is some strong protection magic. It starts with people not really noticing the door that leads to this part of the house, but this room in particular has some intense protection wards on it. If you look around, like at the doorframe there at the bottom, you can see the sigils carved into the wood.”

  I walked over and looked. “These little symbols are the protection wards?”

  “They cast the wards. Again, you won’t really notice them unless you’re looking for them,” Voodoo said. “But this room serves as sort of a magic safe room as well as an office. You can come in here if you’re ever in danger, but you can also cast magic that you don’t want other witches to pick up on.”

  “Wow, I wouldn’t have thought Leo would be casting anything like that,” I said.

  “Not all magic is good, and not all witches are your friends. We’re supposed to be one big family, but it doesn’t always work out like that,” Voodoo said. “But, enough about that for now. How about you check the middle desk drawer for a phone.”

  I walked over to the desk and the first thing that popped out at me was the little black lock on the drawer. “It’s locked,” I said.

  “Just try it,” Voodoo said patiently. “I’m sure it’s not locked for you.”

  I gave the drawer a tug, and sure enough, it opened. “Is the lock even real?” I asked.

  “The lock is real, but it doesn’t require a key to open. You just have to be the right person.”

  Inside the drawer was Leo’s phone, but right next to it was a brand new phone in a box. There was a note on the box.

  Just in case. It read.

  “It looks like Leo left me a new phone,” I said and picked up the box.

  “He knew what kind of man that Dane guy was,” Voodoo said. “Probably anticipated that he’d shut off your phone.”

  “Leo knew about Dane? You knew about Dane?”

  “Just because you haven’t been paying attention to us doesn’t mean we weren’t paying attention to you,” Voodoo said. “Now, swap out the sim cards on those phones and let’s go. There’s ice cream to be served to the good people of Knox Hills.”

  I’d been at the ice cream shop for about an hour when a woman dressed in a perfectly tailored pinstriped skirt suit walked through the doors. She had a man with a camera and tripod with her, and I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on. I turned to ask Lyn, but she already knew what I was going to ask.

  “That’s the mayor,” Lyn whispered to me. “Saffron Kent.”

  “Right. So, her husband was in here yesterday, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “Good morning,” Saffron announced to the store.

  She had apparently dropped by to be mayorly and wanted everyone in the store to see it. Saffron pointed to a spot near the counter and the camera guy started setting up.

  “Good morning,” Lyn and I said in unison.

  “I do hope you don’t mind if we get a picture to submit to the paper,” Saffron said.

  I guessed that my consent had all but been assumed and her asking was a formality. It would mean free publicity for the shop, and I was fine with that.

  “Sure,” I said. “I’d love to have a picture for the paper.”

  “Good,” she said. “How about right here in front of the cases?”

  We did several photos with me and Saffron, and the photographer took several more with Lyn too. After they were done, the mayor and her photographer surprised me by getting in line to buy ice cream.

  “Thank you for the photos,” she said. “I love to use my office to highlight local businesses. You’re an important part of the community.”

  “Well, I appreciate it too.”

  “And between you and me, I could use some ice cream today. Any kind of pick-me-up is welcome, and it’s too early for me to have a martini,” she said with a chuckle.

  “Ice cream will do that,” I said. “I’m sorry you’re having a bad day.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing life or death. I was just under the impression that the Roth house was going up for sale, and it’s making me nervous that Laney hasn’t put it on the market yet. I’ve been eyeing that place since I was a little girl. It’s the nicest house in Knox Hills. Lukas would never have sold it, but the rumor is that Laney would rather have the money than the house. She’d been trying to get him to sell it and move to the city for years.”

  “Oh,” I wasn’t sure what to say at first. “Well, I hope you get your house. It would be nice for something good to come out of this tragedy.”

  She gave me a wink. “I think I’ll have the Blueberry Bliss with some of that marshmallow topping.”

  I wanted to press her further about the matter or ask if she had any idea who might have killed Lukas, but I got the distinct feeling the conversation was over. When she and her photographer were gone, I retreated to my office to talk to Voodoo about the encounter.

  Once inside the ice cream shop’s office, I locked the door and pulled down the shade that covered the door’s window. There was a radio on the shelf, and I switched it on. My hope was that if Lyn came in the back, she wouldn’t hear Voodoo and I talking.

  “I just had the weirdest encounter,” I said to Voodoo.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” Voodoo said.

  “I’ve got the radio on, I don’t think anyone will hear us talking.”

  “You’re cute,” Voodoo said. “Besides, I want some air.”

  “You didn’t have to come to work with me,” I said.

  In the end, Voodoo won and we left the shop to go for a walk. The Knox Hills cemetery was much closer to the town square than I expected. We walked a few blocks, and I was a little startled when Voodoo turned and walked through the gates.

  “In there?”

  “What? It’s like a park.”

  I relented and we went in so Voodoo could sniff grass in the sunshine, and so we could talk without having to worry about the regulars overhearing. It was a beautiful day, and the cemetery was peaceful. It wasn’t a place I ever would have considered going for a stroll before moving to Knox Hills, but I knew I’d be back to do it again.

  Towards the center, there was a pond with stone benches around the bank. I sat down and turned my face up to the sun while Voodoo made his way down to sniff the bank.

  “So, what did you want to tell me?” Voodoo asked after a couple of peaceful minutes.

  “While you were in the office back at the shop, the mayor came in and got some photos of the shop,” I said.

  “And?”

  “And she mentioned that she was disappointed that Laney hadn’t put the Roth house up for sale yet. She said she’s wanted it since she was a kid, but that Laney hadn’t been able to convince Lukas to sell it,” I said.

  “That is interesting,” Voodoo trotted away from the water line back up to where I sat.

  “You don’t think she could have killed him so they could buy the house?” I asked.

  “That’s a pretty big leap,” Voodoo said.

  “Yeah, but she winked at me.”

  “Like she was flirting with you?” Voodoo cocked his head to the side.

  “No, like it was some sort of conspiracy and we were in on it together,” I said. “You know, her husband was happy that Lukas is dead too. He thanked me. I think they are weird people.”

  “I mean, they might be a little eccentric, you’d have to be to a human mayor of a town that’s half witches, but I don’t think Saffron is eccentric enough to murder someone over a house.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked him.

  “No,” Voodoo said flatly.

  “Then why are you saying it like you are?” I asked.

  “Because I want you to think this through. You were sure that La
ney killed her husband, but now you think that the mayor might have done it. Anyone else?” Voodoo asked.

  “You don’t have to be snarky,” I said. “But yes, I do think it’s possible that Saffron’s husband did it too. Like I said, Roger was in my store thanking me for killing Lukas.”

  “But you don’t think Roger did it over the Roth house?”

  “No, I think he did it because Lukas put the moves on Saffron.”

  “This is making my head hurt,” Voodoo said. “I’m going to go sniff the water some more.”

  Chapter Twelve

  I was going to get up and follow Voodoo down to the edge of the pond, but I heard a car coming. I turned around and saw the sheriff’s cruiser driving slowly through the cemetery towards us.

  Bethany pulled the car over to the side of the narrow road and got out. She made her way over to where Voodoo and I were hanging out.

  “Are you looking for me?” I asked as she approached.

  My stomach dropped. Technically, I was still a suspect. Had she come to arrest me?

  “No,” she said as she came over and plopped down on the bench next to me. Bethany let out a heavy sigh before continuing. “I come out here to think. Usually, there’s no one around.”

  “Sorry,” I offered with a shrug.

  “Rowan’s not with you,” she said, and I could hear a note of relief in her voice.

  “I came out here right after working at the shop. I’m assuming he’s at work, though I don’t know what he does…”

  “He owns a shop that sells oils, soaps, and other stuff like that. I’m surprised you don’t know that. The Happy Herbalist. He makes all of the stuff himself. It’s a bit pricy, but worth every penny. The store is really popular in town, especially with the women.”

  “I’m not surprised,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Bethany responded.

  “So you came out here to think? You seem stressed, want to talk about it?”

  “I suppose it doesn’t matter if I do. It’s an ongoing investigation, but it’s not going anywhere,” Bethany sighed again.

  “You mean Lukas’s murder?”

  “Yeah, it’s a dead-end right now. I don’t have enough evidence to really pursue any leads. It’s hard to know what direction to go because so many people would have motive to kill him, but I just can’t see anyone actually doing it. Except you,” she said. “No offense, but I don’t know you that well.”