Un-Familiar Magic (Accidental Familiar Book 3)

by Belinda White

  Now her eyes met mine. “What do you mean? We know who killed him. Me and... well, me.”

  I shook my head. “The sheriff doesn’t think so. Not if you two have been telling us the truth. He told me that according to the coroner, Ralph had been stabbed. That’s most likely what killed him, not the damage you and Tommy did to him.”

  Her eyes widened and her lips parted slightly. “Are you serious? You aren’t just saying that?”

  “I wouldn’t get your hopes up on this, Mabel. If what you and Tommy said was true and neither of you used a knife on him, then someone other than the two of you dealt that killing blow.”

  She stood up and started pacing. “Oh, this is wonderful. I didn’t kill him. Tommy didn’t kill him. Oh, thank you, Amie!”

  Now the tears started up again in earnest, but I think they had changed to tears of relief rather than worry, grief, and guilt.

  I gave her time to recover a bit, then prodded her a little. “Do you know who that might have been?”

  Taking a deep breath, she reached over for another tissue and wiped her eyes before blowing her nose. The tissue hit the mountain and rolled off to join its predecessors.

  “Well, he and Marco—that’s his business partner if you can call what they do a business—were at it recently. Marco was accusing him of taking out a big draw on the company’s account.”

  “Did he? Take the draw, I mean.”

  “He wouldn’t admit it, but I think he did. He came home with a bunch of high-priced alcohol that night. I know it cost more than we could have afforded. Ralph didn’t like the cheap stuff. Thought it was beneath him or something.”

  Sounded like the man I was being to see for his true self. A loser in every sense.

  “Did Marco threaten him?”

  Mabel thought for a minute. “Yeah, but not with violence or anything. He said if the money didn’t reappear in the account, he’d take legal actions.”

  If Ralph was a full partner with access to the company’s bank account, I really didn’t think there were many legal options that would be left to poor Marco. But it wasn’t worth going into that with Mabel. That bit of information may have come from Ralph. The real story might be very different.

  “Anyone else you can think of?” With Ralph’s reputation, I was betting there would be at least a half dozen good suspects within city limits. I wasn’t wrong.

  “Well, if he treated her anything like he treated me, which I doubt, then his mistress might make the list. But all I know about her is that she wears expensive smelling perfume.”

  “Ralph was having an affair? Are you sure?”

  She nodded. “Oh yes. There were nights when he’d come home from the club reeking of her perfume and with lipstick in places he’d forgotten to wipe off.” She blushed. “Some of those places weren’t where it would have been possible to get lipstick with your clothes still on.”

  “Ah.” What more could I say?

  It took some doing and a lot of leading questions, but I came away from Mabel’s with a list of names to start with. I headed to the library before the sheriff’s station, though. They had the closest public copy machine that I knew of, and I wanted a copy of this list before I handed it over to Sheriff Taylor, or his desk jockey and my current beau, Opie.

  Right now, it was my full intention to let the sheriff and his company handle this one on their own. But if things started looking iffy for Mabel or Tommy, that would change.

  I wasn’t going to let either of my friends go down for the murder of a jerk like Ralph Morgan.

  Chapter 9

  AFTER MAKING THE COPY and dropping it off at the sheriff’s office, my next stop was a mandatory one. The car wash.

  As there had been no rain in the forecast, the top had been down on my little bug ever since I’d bought it. Any hope of it helping to air out the smell had been a futile one. If anything, the smell had gotten stronger.

  When I raised the top in order to go through the car wash, the odor seemed to magnify tenfold. It was all I could do not to throw up from it. I threw open both doors and climbed out into the open trying to catch a breath of clear, odorless air. That wasn’t possible in smelling range of the car which seemed to grow every second.

  As soon as the roof was firmly secured, I shut the doors. That helped. A little. I just hoped I had enough quarters.

  Twenty dollars in change went pretty quickly as I soaped and scrubbed the outside of the car as hard as I could with multiple layers of lathery suds. Then I rinsed it briefly and repeated the entire process, trying to get as much of the underneath of the car as I could as well. It was hard to say exactly where the odor was coming from. It seemed pretty much everywhere.

  When I was done and couldn’t put it off any longer, I held my breath and opened the door long enough to dart inside to push the control to open the roof. Then I high-tailed it out of the car wash bay and waited a good five minutes.

  By the time I risked going back in—a necessary risk as by this time there was another car waiting for the bay—I had high hopes of a little improvement. They were dashed pretty quickly.

  The inside of the car wasn’t as bad as it was with the top up, but it was still bad.

  Next stop, the local hardware store to rent an upholstery shampoo machine. It took some major doing to get the machine in the car with the limited trunk space, but with the help of a couple of bungee cords, I got the job done.

  I parked closer to the house when I got home as I would need to plug in a long extension cord for power. An outlet in Mom’s kitchen was the closest, so I got it hooked up and ready to go.

  Then I knocked on Ruby’s door. When she answered, I grinned at her.

  She rubbed her eyes and looked at me with a frown. “You ready for your lesson already?”

  It was pretty obvious that she’d just gotten up for the day. She was really milking this extended vacation from the shop for everything it was worth. Right now, I was feeling pretty good about myself. Normally, I was the sleepy-headed bum of the family. Things were really looking up.

  “Nope, but I could use your help.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and she took half a step toward me before backing up big time. Her hand went to cover her nose and mouth.

  “Goddess, it’s getting worse. What did you do to make it so angry?”

  My smile and good mood were fading pretty quickly. “I washed it. Twice. Now I’m going to shampoo the trunk and the inside.”

  She shook her head, and the door started closing.

  “I’ll spring for Carney’s Pizza for lunch.”

  The door paused for about two seconds before it finished closing with a final sounding click.

  I was on my own.

  WHEN I’D DROPPED OFF the papers at the sheriff’s office, I’d found that Opie wasn’t there. He’d gone to see his doctor. The hope was that he’d be released for full duty again today. On the off chance that he was done at the doc’s and had some free time on his hands, I gave him a ring.

  I lucked out, too. His dad had given him the rest of the day off in celebration of his release. Well, he was to have a talk with Tommy friend to friend, so he wasn’t totally off duty for the whole day. But he had a couple of hours to spare and offered to help me.

  And yes, it was the Carney’s pizza that sealed the deal. What can I say? The two of us were made for each other.

  It didn’t take him long to get there. By the time he arrived, I had the machine plugged in and filled with the cleaning solution properly mixed with water. This had better work. I was running out of options, and I didn’t want to live the rest of the car’s life hearing Ruby’s I told you so’s.

  He pulled in and parked over by the trees, in the shade. When he got out of his car, he nodded appreciatively.

  “Cute wheels,” he said. “How much did you go into debt on her?”

  A little pride crept in. “Not a penny. Even had enough left over to cover the registration fee and everything.”

  Opie didn’t look like
he believed me until he got a few steps closer.

  “What the hell is that?”

  Yeah, the car wash had seemed to anger it. It had been bad before. Now it was far worse. I wouldn’t have thought that possible, but apparently, the car had other ideas.

  He wanted to back out, but I wouldn’t let him. He’d offered me two hours of his time, and I used every minute of it. I’d picked up a hand scrubber while I was out too, and once he wet down the trunk, I went to town with it. Within those one hundred and twenty minutes, we covered every square inch of the inside of that vehicle.

  And it didn’t do an ounce of good.

  We sat on the bottom step of our outside stairway and stared at the car. It just shouldn’t be possible for a single thing to stink so very bad. Especially after all that soap and water.

  “Do I still get my Carney’s pizza?”

  I nodded. It wasn’t his fault our efforts had been wasted. Besides, I’d worked up quite a sweat in the last few hours. Funny, but right now I welcomed the slight body odor. It beat the car’s smell by a landslide.

  We took separate showers as we waited for the pizza. The single showers were necessary as we weren’t yet to that point in our relationship where we were having sexual relations. Hey, we were taking it slow, dang it! Mostly because of the whole Light Witch power control thing, but still... slow.

  Of course, Ruby was watching for the delivery man, too, and snuck over for a slice. After a moment’s internal debate, I let her have one. One. The rest Opie and I had earned doing the work. She should have helped while she’d had the chance.

  As we munched, she looked thoughtful. “You know, I’ve been thinking about that smell your car...” She sniffed. “Okay, and you too, have.”

  Hadn’t we all? It was kind of hard not to think of it what with being surrounded by the stench and all. But she wasn’t done.

  “I’m thinking it isn’t a natural odor. What if your car has been hexed? Maybe by a karma spell or something. The owner might have given up on it and traded it in for a less-smelly version. And you got stuck with the curse that should be on him.”

  I paused mid-bite. She made a very good point. That would also explain the odor worsening every time we tried to do something about it. Karma spells did that sometimes. Especially if the witch in question had included that little bit into the spell work.

  “Is there any way to know who cast it?” I was really hoping she’d say yes. Surely, we could get the witch to reverse it if we could find them.

  She chewed thoughtfully, eyeing the remaining pizza. There were two slices left. “I’m not sure. Hunger makes it hard to think.”

  That got an eye roll from me. And another piece of pizza. I was glad I went with the extra-large. Not that there had been any debate on that. Opie and I could really put Carney’s away.

  Ruby grinned as she bit into it. “Thanks,” she said belatedly around her mouth full of pizza goodness.

  She’s beautiful as a witch can be, but she isn’t all that big on manners sometimes. At least not around friends.

  “So...” I said.

  The grin got bigger as she swallowed the bite. “Oh, I have no way of telling, but Mom might. I know the council has a way of checking magical signatures and stuff. And now that I think of it, there should be a spell mark, shouldn’t there? If we could find that, that should tell Mom all she needs to know.”

  We hurried up and finished the pizza then ran down to the car.

  “We should have brought clothespins for our noses,” Opie said. You’d think he was joking. He wasn’t.

  “Just a minute.” I ran back upstairs and took three of the cheap face masks out of the pack I’d bought when I went to the animal shelter for my familiar. The one that turned out to be my brother. Boy, was that ever a long story. I sprayed a touch of perfume on the center of the face shields and then hustled back down to the others.

  Opie nodded appreciatively. “It isn’t perfect, but it will help.”

  It took us all of five minutes to find it.

  A tiny black shape inside a circle. The shape looked oddly like a wolf’s head.

  I say odd because our spell marks say something about each individual witch. Our family had spell marks that were tiny pentagrams with the color of our gemstone in the very center. I’d actually had a necklace made out of mine. They were tiny but perfect.

  So what did a wolf say about the witch that cast it?

  And just like that, the dread started seeping in.

  Chapter 10

  AFTER THAT, THE DAY passed pretty much as it should have. The spell session with Opal wasn’t an odor conquering one after all. According to her, that might make the karma spell extremely angry, and we’d already ticked it off more than we should have. As it was, she made me move my car over to the farthest point of smooth grass away from the house. Now if the breeze would start helping and blow the other way, we’d have it made.

  Until I had to go somewhere.

  In fact, as it turned out, the spell session didn’t really live up to its name at all. Instead, she took the allotted time slot for it to gather us girls together and go foraging. I guessed that was because us finding the spell mark had thrown her off her game, but she wasn’t saying that and nothing about her demeanor said it either. She and Mom might be able to read me and Ruby like open books, but the book of Opal was closed up tight.

  The woods behind our house was full of all kinds of nifty spell casting ingredients. Some were natural inhabitants and others had been specifically transplanted there by the moms. Either way, they were all thriving. Most of the credit for that went to my mom. She wasn’t just a healer for humans. Her powers worked well for plants too.

  While we were making our haul, Opal spent the time explaining each plant’s name and purpose for spellcraft. So, maybe this was a lesson after all. This was all stuff that I needed to know. As it had been thought I didn’t have magic, we’d kind of left this knowledge out of my schooling growing up. Time to change that.

  I needed to catch up. And according to the Goddess, I’d better be pretty quick at doing so.

  By the time we headed back to make dinner, we each had a good stash of leaves, roots, and fungi in our pouches. Some of it would be dried and used to restock the shop’s shelves once Opal decided to reopen. I was betting that wouldn’t be too long. Opal wasn’t much of one to sit around the house all day doing nothing.

  Besides, that shop meant a lot to her. I hated that my current situation was keeping her from it. Yet another, more personal, reason to get this witch with power aspect of my life in order as quickly as possible. So my family could get their normal lives back.

  None of us wanted to cook, so we just threw together a quick salad topped with some leftover strips of cooked chicken and cheese. It was cold, but it was good. And with the season finally changing over to summer, a cold meal every now and again was a welcome change.

  I took mine to go and headed up to my apartment. I knew I had promised myself—and yes, Opie too—that I’d let the sheriff handle Ralph’s death, but it wasn’t sitting as well with me as I’d thought it would. I just felt like I wasn’t doing right by my friends.

  That feeling multiplied when my phone rang, and I recognized Mabel’s number.

  “Hey, Mabel. You doing okay?”

  “Not really, Amie.” I could tell that from her voice. There was a definite shake to it. “Last night was really rough here alone...”

  Some friend I am. Of course, she shouldn’t be alone at night right now.

  “Why don’t you come and stay with me for a few days? My couch makes a great bed, and it’s quiet out here. Maybe that would help your nerves a bit.”

  There was a brief silence. “You really wouldn’t mind?”

  “Of course not. I’ll even come to get you if you need me to. Though I should warn you, my car has a pretty nasty odor to it. We’re trying to fix it, but well, it’s fighting us.”

  “I can drive myself out if you’re sure it’s okay.”


  “I am. And if Tommy wants to come over to visit you here, that’s fine too.”

  I heard the breath she blew out even over the phone. Yeah, I’d guessed right. Part of the reason she wanted away from town was so that she and Tommy could talk without getting their neighbors’ tongues wagging. Small towns have a reputation for gossip for a reason.

  “Thanks, Amie. I’ve talked with him a couple of times over the phone, but I could sure use him right now. I just wish...”

  “No need to finish that sentence, Mabel. I wish you’d found each other before Ralph entered the picture too. It would have been so much better for both of you. You deserve to be happy.”

  “I never broke my vows you know. To Ralph. I was faithful right up to the end. Even though I knew he wasn’t.”

  Yeah, I needed to work on that angle. There had to be a way to figure out who the mystery woman was. Once we knew, we could add at least one more possible suspect to the list. Two if the woman was married.

  The next half hour was a bit of a whirlwind of cleaning. I’m not the best of housekeepers even at the best of times. And the times of late hadn’t been the best.

  I managed to get the dishes washed and the bathroom semi-clean before I heard steps on the balcony. I opened the door just as Tommy was getting ready to knock.

  He stood there blinking at me in silence.

  Well, this was awkward. I’d really thought Mabel would be the first to arrive. I hadn’t planned to have to handle alone time with Tommy.

  “Thank you for letting us meet here,” he finally said. “I’ve been kind of dying a little knowing how bad she’s hurting right now and not being able to be with her.”

  “Hey, it’s no problem. She’s going to be staying here a few days, I think. Until things settle down a bit. You’re welcome here any time.” Then I looked him square in the eye. “Nothing more than hugs here, though, okay? I don’t want to walk in on something... other than that.”

  His laugh didn’t have an ounce of humor in it. “That’s all it’s ever been between us. And even the hugs are rare.”