Brooms and Brains (A Hocus Pocus Cozy Witch Mystery Series Book 5)

by Constance Barker

  “Yeah, she’s cool. We’ve always been close, you know?”

  “So how did you come to work in Jody’s diner?”

  “Oh, that was my mom; she has been friends with Jody for a while so when Jody mentioned she was looking for a cook, mom asked her to consider me for the job.”

  “That worked out well then. According to Jody, you are a very talented chef,” Celestial enthused.

  Tommy’s cheeks colored. “Yeah, well I have studied a bit and I love to make up my own recipes. The food I cook at Jody’s isn’t the most exciting cuisine but I make the dishes the best they can be and I test some of my finer dishes on some of the regulars.” His face lit up with enthusiasm when he spoke.

  “I can tell you’re passionate about being a chef,” Celestial said.

  “I am. It’s been great as I love the work and I’ve managed to save enough money to get my own apartment.”

  “Well, I’m sure your mom will miss you. Is that why you wanted to buy her something?”

  “Not particularly, I just thought it would be a nice gesture as she’s been so supportive.”

  “That’s really thoughtful of you. Now let me help you find something special.”

  Once she was alone, Celestial got out her notebook which she had taken to hiding under the order book behind the counter.

  “Hey Celestial,” Stella and Bella said in unison, as they materialized next to her. “How’s it hanging?”

  “Oh!” Celestial gave a start. “You startled me.”

  “That’s what we’re going for,” Stella said. “I have a date tonight.”

  “With who?” Celestial asked.

  “It’s a secret,” Stella said.

  “He came over on the Mayflower, and he’s much much older,” Bella confided.

  “How’s things with your beau, Celestial?” Stella asked, enjoying the moment.

  “He’s okay, this case is really taking it out on him.”

  “Any suspects yet?” Bella asked.

  “I was just compiling the list,” Celestial said, as she tapped the pen she was holding against her lip as she thought about her list of possible suspects.

  Tommy appeared to be a kind, soft-spoken man who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Although, it can often be those people who may not be able to wield a knife or point a gun, who could manage to use poison to murder someone she mused. Poison was easy to obtain, easy to administer, and the killer didn’t have to be close by when the victim consumed it.

  Celestial twisted her lips in thought for a few moments before adding Tommy to her list of suspects.

  Chapter 7

  Jody walked aimlessly down Brightborough’s main street, passing by the different shop windows all proudly displaying their wares. She had errands to run for the diner--even if this was technically Jody’s day off, a small business owner was never truly off. The stress of Tammy’s death and the investigation was taking its toll, though, and Jody knew some fresh air and mindless wandering would do her some good. Unfortunately, this brief respite of peace would not last long.

  As Jody admired the dress displayed in a boutique window, three young twenty-somethings--two women and a man--approached. They surrounded Jody before she had time to even notice their arrival.

  “You’ve got a lot of nerve, walking around town like this,” said one of the women, a Gucci bag hanging from her shoulder. Her friends, each with their own expensive accessories, nodded in silent agreement.

  Jody turned to face the Gucci woman more directly, looking into her hazel eyes. “I have no idea what you mean,” Jody responded, feigning ignorance to the best of her ability. With one look, it was immediately clear to her that the group was cut from the same cloth as Tammy: all three sported designer items--enough to be a middle-class status symbol, but not enough to express the level of wealth they desperately wanted to convey. An even more obvious trait they shared with Tammy, though, was the egoistic attitude she had been so well known for.

  “Don’t play dumb,” balked the man, “we know Tammy died at your restaurant.” He folded his arms in silent victory, closed off to Jody’s forthcoming pleas of innocence.

  “N… no,” Jody stammered as her face reddened. “I mean, yes. Tammy died after eating at the diner, but-”

  “So you admit it,” scoffed the second woman, pushing a lock of brunette hair behind her ear. “Your food killed Tammy.”

  “No!” shouted Jody, “That’s not what I said. Her death was a coincidence-”

  “Coincidence?” Piped up the first woman. “How dare you. Our friend died, gone forever because of what you did, and you have the gall to call it a coincidence?”

  Jody stared at the three in stunned silence. They wouldn’t allow her to speak; why bother trying?

  “Hey, I’ve got an idea,” said the man. “Maybe you should rename your place. You know, give it something more fitting?” He smirked at Jody.

  The brunette chimed in. “Yeah, that’s great! What about The Diner of Death?” As she said this, she mockingly raised her hands and wriggled them in an insincere display of fear. “Has a nice ring, don’t you think?” she asked her friends, but her eyes stayed squarely on Jody.

  “Ooh, that’s great,” responded Gucci woman, her lips curling into an ugly smirk. “Name aside, though, I just don’t think I could bear to eat somewhere that my friend died.” Her voice rose as she began to take notice of the nearby people listening in on the altercation. She was determined for as many to hear as possible.

  Jody had noticed these listeners, too, but what she saw even more clearly were their sideways, suspicious glances. They all seemed determined to stay blind to her plight. Knowing she was alone in this fight, Jody composed herself, stood up straight, and whispered, “Good.”

  “Excuse me?” questioned the brunette accusingly.

  “I said,” Jody spoke up, her voice rising to their level, “good. I wouldn’t want people like you three in my diner. There is absolutely no evidence linking Tammy’s death to her meal, and even if there was, for all we know it could have been a fluke, an allergy no one knew about or something else. You have no proof.” They stared in awed silence; none of the three had expected a soft spoken woman like Jody to fight back, even in this small capacity.

  Before losing her confidence, Jody added, “Don’t bother worrying about visiting the diner, either.” She held her head even higher, “You’re all banned from now on.” Jody stood stock-still, desperate to hold back her anxiety from the confrontation.

  Jody was too much for the group and they haughtily walked away, grumbling to one another about the altercation. The various onlookers turned back to themselves in an attempt to appear like they hadn’t heard the entire thing.

  When the group of friends was well out of sight, Jody let out a sigh and collapsed into herself. She tried to hold back her tears, not wanting anyone to notice how affected she’d been.

  ・・・

  Later, Jody drove to Herbal Heaven to confide in Celestial. She needed to talk to someone to keep from bottling up her pain, and Celestial was an exceptional listener.

  As Jody recounted what happened with the bullies, Celestial sipped her tea and listened attentively and wide-eyed. Jody finished her story and tried again to hold back her tears, but a few managed to slide down her cheeks and drop into her own cup of tea.

  “Oh, hon,” Celestial said, placing a reassuring hand on Jody’s arm. “It’s all going to be okay. This is just town gossip, nothing more.” Celestial waved a hand, pushing away the nasty rumor. “The whole thing will blow over before you know it.”

  Jody looked up, her tears falling more freely now, her eyes red and nose running. “I’m not sure, Celestial. This feels different.” She set down her tea to wipe at her face with her hands, trying more to hide the tears then actually get rid of them.

  “Even if that is the case,” Jody went on, “it needs to happen soon. The diner can’t stay afloat like this.”

  Celestial grimaced. If she wanted to help Jody, she’d n
eed to solve this case fast.

  Chapter 8

  Celestial called Tamara to the store to see if she could watch it. “Of course!” Tamara said brightly. “I’ll be right there. Just give me a couple minutes.”

  While they waited for Tamara to arrive, Celestial walked through her plan with Athena. She was going to visit Tammy’s house to see whether there was anything there--anything the police might have missed--that might give Celestial some idea of who would have wanted Tammy dead.

  Well, a more specific idea. The problem now was that there were too many people who seemed to fit the bill. But if she was going to absolve Jody of general suspicion, she needed to get a sense of any particular grudges, anything recent and personal, that might have played a factor in Tammy’s death.

  In Celestial’s experience, the victim’s house was often a crucial breeding ground for clues as to their killer’s identity.

  “I’m not so sure this is a good idea,” remarked Athena, flitting nervously near Celestial’s ear.

  Celestial paused and gave Athena a considering look. “What? Why not?”

  “It just seems dangerous,” Athena said. “You don’t know if the police will be there. You don’t want anyone to catch you snooping.”

  “I’m not too worried about it.” Celestial shrugged, trying not to let Athena’s sudden loss of faith in her investigative skills bother her. “I mean, this is hardly the first time I’ve checked out a victim’s house in order to get more insight into what happened or who might have wanted to kill them.”

  “That’s what I mean,” Athena pleaded. “It’s far from the first time. And you almost always get caught.”

  “I don’t get caught,” Celestial objected. “I almost get caught. There’s a difference.”

  Athena was meaningfully silent for a moment, and Celestial was forced to sigh and concede, “Okay, but you have to admit I usually don’t get caught.”

  “You’re getting overconfident. I just want to make sure you’re careful.”

  Celestial bit back the easy dismissal she wanted to say. Athena was her familiar, and Athena was worried about her safety, which was only appropriate. It would probably do Celestial good to listen to what her familiar was trying to tell her.

  “Fine,” Celestial agreed. “I’ll be careful. I promise. I’ll keep an eye and an ear out, and I won’t wait for the last second to poof away, even if I see the most tantalizing clue that I just have to check out. And, tell you what… I’ll even allow my trusted familiar to accompany me and act as a look-out.”

  This last remark got Athena zipping anxiously around the room, and it took Celestial until Tamara had arrived to get her to calm down and agree to come along on the mission.

  At Athena’s cautious insistence, they apparated into the neighborhood, checked from the outside that the house seemed empty, and then materialized inside the front door. “It still doesn’t seem safe to me,” Athena whispered as they advanced through the quiet house. “Just because a house looks empty doesn’t mean it is….”

  Celestial, perhaps a little more affected by Athena’s nervous insinuations than she would have liked to be, didn’t reply. She was suddenly nervous of making too much noise.

  They quickly found Tammy’s bedroom, an almost pathologically well-ordered space touched here and there with little feminine elements: a soft pink curtain, a jewelry display on the vanity, a single flower in a vase on the bedside table, already turning crisp and dry. Tammy must have put that flower there herself, only a couple of days ago.

  It was strange, being here in Tammy’s space, knowing she was gone forever. The careful, controlling order Tammy exerted on almost every aspect of her life no longer had a center, had nothing anymore to frighten it into shape. As far as Celestial had heard, it was a good thing for the town that Tammy was gone--but still, the fact of the murder shook her. Still, the truth needed to be found out, and Jody’s name cleared, and Celestial felt to the very core of her being that she was the one who needed to figure out what had happened.

  “I’m going to look around in here,” Celestial said quietly. “Why don’t you keep watch at the front door?”

  “Great idea,” Athena said, evidently eager to leave the dead woman’s room.

  Once Celestial was alone, she rummaged briefly through the bureau and the vanity drawer, turning up nothing of particular interest. In the bedside table, however, she found what was evidently Tammy’s iPad. Luckily, the tablet didn’t seem to have a lock screen; as soon as Celestial pressed the home button the menu lit up, allowing Celestial to scroll through the apps.

  She double-pressed the home button to see what apps had been used most recently. The last time Tammy had used this tablet, she had evidently accessed her email account. Celestial didn’t find anything interesting in her inbox, but she checked her trash folder and discovered that Tammy had recently deleted an exchange with none other than Tommy Rainford.

  The most interesting message was the most recent one, the one that had evidently prompted Tammy to delete the entire exchange. In it, Tommy wrote:

  Please, Tammy, you’ve got to stop this now. Your behavior has made me more certain than ever that I will never, ever go back to you. I am done with this conversation, and with you, forever. I know you insist that I will cave, that if you just keep working at me I’ll give in to you, but I’m telling you now that if I ever go back to you it will be over my dead body.

  Just as Celestial took the severity of these words in, Athena flew into the room and said breathlessly: “He’s here! The detective is here, on the porch, and he’s heading in!”

  Chapter 9

  Nikoli had finally decided to check Tammy’s house for evidence, anything that could point to a motive to kill her. He had only just approached the door when he smelled an incredibly familiar scent.

  Nikoli had his suspicions that Celestial was taking the law into her own hands again. His suspicions were all but confirmed with the strong smell of sulfur. He caught a glimpse of Celestial’s fleeting form, her white-blonde hair just bobbing away out of his field of vision. So she’s still sneaking into other houses… he mused.

  He felt a laugh rise in his throat but quickly suppressed it into a chuckle just in case others were watching or listening nearby. He might have thought it was wrong, but he couldn’t just condemn Celestial for her actions, she was helping anyway. Besides, maybe in her pursuit of evidence for the crime, she’s discovered something he could use to back up his own suspicions and theories.

  Upon entering the house, Nikoli found nothing too out of the ordinary, just the usual clutter of everyday life. Which he expected, there wasn’t really a struggle if the autopsy was correct. If anything, the only thing Nikoli could hope for was incriminating mail, threatening letters, maybe a record of threatening phone calls between Tammy and whoever had it out for her. He heard a distinct noise in the next room...nothing too loud, like the low hum of…

  Nikoli poked his head into the next room, a bedroom, most likely belonging to Tammy. Just as he figured, there, the low humming noise was matched up to the sound of a dragonfly’s wings. Athena, Celestial’s familiar, seemed to be “standing” there. Waiting for him, maybe? When it seemed Athena took notice of him. “Hello there.” Nikoli waved, stepping into the room tentatively to avoid stepping on potential evidence. “I see that you and Celestial have prepped the crime scene for me. Anything of interest?” The dragonfly buzzed around with quick erratic movements as she hovered over one spot of the room in particular.

  Nikoli moved into the middle of the bedroom and made a mental note that Celestial had gotten incredibly good at messing with evidence in ways that left little to no trace. He gave a quick look over and turned back to face Athena. “Is there anything here that you two wanted to share with me?”

  Athena nodded, moving over to where Celestial had admittedly haphazardly tossed Tammy’s Ipad onto her bed, “Does this count, Detective?” Nikoli made his way over to the bed and picked up the tablet. Athena hovered over his
shoulder, “It’s not password protected, either.”

  “So you two have already looked through this, I’m guessing?” Nikoli questioned, swiping on the lock screen of the tablet and watching as the screen flipped to an email inbox layout. At least it will be easier on the techs at the office to analyze whatever’s on this tablet… he thought. He decided to check it out himself.

  Nikoli checked through a few of the emails Tammy had sent to Tommy. He had already known there might have been some trouble in their relationship. Nikoli was pretty sure everyone at least assumed something was wrong, but honestly, he had suspected light arguing. This was more than he suspected. And from the sounds of the conversation, Tommy could have been in a desperate enough position to-

  No, Nikoli chastised internally, no judgment calls without further evidence. This just warrants a conversation with Tommy. He returned to the home screen on the tablet and put it to sleep, tucking the tablet under his arm securely. “Thank you, Athena. We should probably be leaving-”

  Before his thought had fully finished, Nikoli’s nose was filled with the smell of sulfur, accompanied by the visual confirmation of smoke to let him know that someone had appeared. Someone, of course, being Celestial, now standing sheepishly in the doorway of Tammy’s bedroom. “Hi there, Detective.” She started to wave but promptly stopped herself, pushing her hand back down to her side.

  “And what brings the criminal back to the scene of the crime?” Nikoli questioned, failing to keep the smug undertone from his voice. Celestial rolled her eyes in response. “Look, I’d say I’m sorry, but it really is helping.”

  Nikoli shrugged his shoulders, as if to say fair enough, before asking, “Well, then what can you tell me about this email? You’ve read it, right?”

  Celestial nodded, “Well, I know how it reads. Like desperation, fear, and anger, but… I don’t think Tommy did this.” Nikoli must have had an incredulous look on his face because Celestial quickly followed up the statement. “ I just spoke with Tommy. He seems so sweet and kind, and yes that seems exactly like the type of person who could be driven to murder, but I don’t think he did it. At least not yet, I don’t really know him that well…”