That Old Witch!: The Coffee Coven's Cozy Capers: Book 1

by M. Z. Andrews

  Phyllis and Char entered the restaurant, saw their usual spot open, and made a beeline for the round table near the men having coffee in the booth.

  “Good morning, ladies,” said Sergeant Bradshaw as the women walked past him. “A little breezy, but otherwise a beautiful day out there, isn’t it?”

  “It’s always a good day when I wake up alive,” said Char with a grin.

  The bell above the door alerted Char and Phyllis that Habernackle’s door had opened again. They looked back to see Hazel amble in, leaning heavily on her cane, with Gwyn following only a few steps behind.

  Char gave them a big wave. “Over here, girls,” she hollered.

  Gwyn patted her straight shoulder-length hair as she walked, putting it neatly back into place. “Sorry we’re late, I couldn’t get Mom out of the bathroom this morning,” said Gwyn, giving Char and Phyllis each a small hug.

  Hazel stopped walking and leaned back stiffly to scan the faces of the onlookers. “Hell, Gwynnie. Do you have to tell the whole damn restaurant that I was having problems with my morning constitutional?” she snapped. “I can’t rush the process at my age, or I’ll give myself a hernia trying.”

  Char grinned. Something about Hazel seemed to make her smile. Then she looked over at the table full of men. It occurred to her that since Gwyn and Hazel were moving into the community, she should provide some introductions.

  “Gwyn and Hazel, this is Sergeant Bradshaw,” said Char, gesturing towards the white-haired man at the end of the table. She pointed to the next man over, a blond wearing a navy suit and tie, by far the youngest of the small group of men. “That’s Mayor Adams, obviously the mayor of Aspen Falls.”

  Gwyn nodded at the men in turn as Char continued her introductions. Sitting across the table from Mayor Adams was a tall stretch of a man with gangly arms and a long, narrow face etched with deep lines around his mouth. “This is Marcus Wheedlan. He runs the hardware store.”

  She pointed to the man next to Marcus. “This is Sam Jeffries. Mr. Jeffries is retired now, but he used to be a city councilman.” Sam was an elderly man, perhaps the oldest at the table. At one time he’d had coal-black hair, but now it was dusted with time. He barely looked up after being introduced.

  Char pointed at the last man at the table. “And that is Benny Hamilton. He writes for the Aspen Falls Observer. He wrote poor Kat’s obituary,” she tacked on at the end for Gwyn’s benefit. Then Char gestured towards Gwyn and Hazel. “Gentlemen, this is Gwyndolin and Hazel Prescott, Aspen Falls’ newest residents.”

  From the end of the booth, Mayor Adams offered his hand, as did Marcus Wheedlan. Neither Sam nor Benny offered the same nicety and instead only stared back at Gwyn and Hazel, making Gwyn shift uncomfortably in her brown Skechers.

  Sergeant Bradshaw, however, made a point of standing to shake Gwyn’s hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said with a deep bow. “I take it you’re friends of Phyllis and Char’s?”

  Gwyn nodded. “I went to college with them years ago.”

  “Oh, very nice,” he said, lifting his white eyebrows. “What brings you back to Aspen Falls?”

  “I just accepted the activities director position at the Aspen Falls Retirement Village,” she explained as Hazel ignored the men and took a seat next to Phyllis at their table.

  “Oh, they’ve been trying to fill that position for quite a while. You must be something special,” he said with a wide smile, revealing his perfectly white teeth.

  Gwyn lifted a shoulder shyly. “Oh, I wouldn’t say I’m anything special…”

  “They couldn’t fill the position because they couldn’t find anyone with experience who also had experience with the paranormals,” said Benny. He said the paranormals as if it were a dirty word.

  “Yes, well, I’m a witch,” said Gwyn with a nervous little titter. “So, I had the experience they were looking for.”

  Benny rolled his eyes. “Great, more witches. Just what this town needs.”

  Sergeant Bradshaw’s eyes darkened with embarrassment as he looked down at Gwyn. “Don’t mind him,” he whispered loud enough that everyone could still hear. “He’s a little salty. He got beat out for a promotion recently and he hasn’t had all of his coffee yet this morning. That’s a bad combination for a journalist.”

  Gwyn smiled and batted her eyelashes at Sergeant Bradshaw. “Oh, it’s fine. I’m used to people being a little skittish about my abilities. I appreciate it, though.”

  “Well, I’ll let you get to your friends. It was a pleasure to meet you, Gwyndolin,” he said, patting the top of her hand as he shook it.

  “My friends just call me Gwyn,” she said pleasantly. “You’re sure welcome to call me Gwyn as well.”

  Sergeant Bradshaw smiled broadly. “In that case, I’m thrilled to be extended that honor. It was a pleasure to meet you, Gwyn. I hope we bump into each other again sometime.”

  “Likewise,” she agreed before sashaying around a chair and sliding into her seat at the round table with the girls.

  Char leaned over and whispered into Gwyn’s ear. “What was all that eye batting about?”

  “Eye batting?” Gwyn asked, feigning horror.

  “Yes, eye batting,” agreed Phyllis. “Oh, Sergeant Bradshaw,” she added in a mockingly high voice.

  Gwyn threw the napkin in front of her across the table at Phyllis. “Oh, quit it. You girls are ridiculous. I wasn’t making eyes at that man. I was just being polite,” she hissed.

  “It’s about time you flirted with a man. I think you should go home with him and see if he needs his broomstick polished. Maybe that’ll help you take the edge off,” said Hazel with a chuckle.

  “Mother!” gasped Gwyn. Her wide eyes contained a mixture of shock and embarrassment.

  Phyllis slapped her thigh, threw back her head, and let a howl of laughter escape her mouth. “Haze! There’s a child present,” she finally said when her convulsions had finally settled.

  Hazel lifted her eyebrows, which in turn hefted the heavy bags beneath her eyes. “I’m just sayin’, her basement’s gotten a little dusty. Maybe she should let the man come over and help her clear away the cobwebs.”

  Char laughed. “Hazel, you’re terrible!”

  Gwyn’s face flushed bright red. “Mom, you are so embarrassing,” she hissed, looking down at the table and shielding her forehead with her hand. “Please tell me he didn’t hear all that.”

  Char looked over Gwyn’s shoulder to see Sergeant Bradshaw back in heavy conversation with the men at his table. “Nah, he’s moved on, he’s not listening.”

  Gwyn straightened in her seat and then smoothed the invisible wrinkles on her sweater in an attempt to shake off her mother’s words. “Good!” she sighed. “Now, we don’t have much time to visit. Have you ordered us coffee yet?”

  Phyllis shook her head. “No, we just got here too.” She looked back at the bar and caught sight of a tall, slender young man with thick wavy black hair and olive skin. “Excuse me, young man. Over here,” she called to him, lifting a curled finger into the air.

  The waiter approached the ladies with a tray of coffee mugs and a coffee carafe. “Good morning, ladies,” he said with a smile.

  “Good morning,” chirped Phyllis. She turned to her friends. “Girls, this is my grandson, Reign Alexander,” said Phyllis. “He’s my daughter Linda’s oldest child. Reign, this is Gwyn Prescott. She was an old college friend of mine, and this is her mother, Hazel.”

  “It’s nice to meet you both. Hazel, that’s a terrific color for you,” said Reign, referring to the blue shirt Hazel wore that made her eyes pop.

  “Eh?” asked Hazel, cupping her hand around her ear.

  “He said you look great, Mom,” said Gwyn, leaning closer to her good ear.

  Reign smiled and plucked a piece of material at the breast of his shirt. “That’s a great color for you, brings out your eyes,” he said more loudly this time.

  Hazel wagged a crooked finger at him. “Uh-uh, Sonny. I’m off
-limits. I don’t date my friend’s children or grandchildren. You’re quite the looker, though.”

  Reign held back the smile that threatened his easy-going composure and pretended to crumple next to the table. “Aww, just my luck.” Then he straightened himself. “Well, can I at the very least get you a cup of coffee?” He put a cup in front of Hazel.

  “Yes, and you can get me some French fries,” said Hazel.

  He set coffee cups around the table in front of each of the women. “French fries?” asked Reign with a lift of his brows as he poured the coffee.

  “You got wax in your ears, Sonny?” she snapped. “Yes, French fries.”

  “Fries are on our lunch and dinner menus, but I could probably do you a special favor because you’re a friend of my grandmother’s,” said Reign with a little wink at Hazel.

  “See, there he goes, flirting with me again.” She turned to Char. “The men. They can’t resist my charms.”

  “Mother, he’s just trying to be polite,” whispered Gwyn, exasperated. She shook her head and reached out to touch Reign’s elbow. “No fries, please, just bring her a Danish or a roll or something. I’ll have the same.” She looked at her mother and shouted, “Mom, you can have French fries at lunchtime. Don’t make this poor man go to the extra trouble.”

  Hazel scowled at her daughter. “See what I’m saying? She’s wound so tight. She needs to have the edge taken off,” she said, elbowing Char in the ribs.

  Reign smiled. “Okay, so two rolls. Char, Phyllis, can I get you anything?” he asked.

  Gwyn eyed Phyllis curiously but remained mum.

  “Oatmeal with a side of wheat toast,” said Char decidedly. “And I’ll take my senior discount, please.”

  “I’ll have the special,” said Phyllis. “Extra bacon, please. Not too crisp.”

  Char shook her head. She was going to have to work on Phyllis’s diet, so she didn’t have a heart attack on her. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing another friend.

  Char touched Reign’s arm before he ran off. “What’s going on today? Why’s the place so busy?”

  Reign looked around. “I think we’ve got a lot of tourists in today for the festival. And then, of course, there’s Sergeant Bradshaw’s coffee club over there,” he said, gesturing towards the group of men. Then he tipped his head in the other direction. “And that group meets twice a month for breakfast. It’s the Aspen Falls Master Gardener Club. Okay, ladies, I’ll have that out for you in a jiffy.” He snapped his notepad closed, tucked it in his apron pocket, and took off.

  “Your grandson calls you Phyllis?” Gwyn asked Phyllis after Reign had gotten out of earshot.

  “Oh, well, yeah. We’re sort of working on our relationship,” explained Phyllis uncomfortably. She waved a hand at Gwyn. “It’s a long story.”

  “And unfortunately we don’t have a lot of time today. You’ll have to tell me about it another time. We need to figure out what to do about finding that spell book,” said Gwyn.

  Char grinned and leaned into the table conspiringly. “I agree. I’ve been thinking about that. I think we start with the first person that discovered Kat dead. We start with the paperman.”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense,” agreed Gwyn. “So maybe at lunch, the three of us go pay him a visit?”

  “The three of us? You, me, and Phil?” asked Char, counting them each off in turn. “What about Hazel?”

  Hazel furrowed her brow and pointed at herself. “Yeah, what about Hazel?”

  Gwyn shook her head. “Oh no. You’re staying at The Village. I’ll have someone keep an eye on you while I’m gone.”

  “What? No way. Things are just starting to get interesting!” she whined.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. But you tend to blurt things out, and we can’t have you messing things up for us.”

  “What are you geniuses gonna do? Just go knock on the man’s door?” asked Hazel. “You think he’s just gonna tell you he stole the book?”

  Phyllis made a face. “The woman has a point.”

  Gwyn’s jaw dropped. “Yeah, at the tip of her devil’s horns,” she sighed.

  “Okay, so what do we do about it? How do we figure out if he really took the book?” asked Phyllis.

  Hazel rolled her eyes. “Obviously you take me. I read minds. Hello? Anyone home in the bat cave?” she asked, knocking gently on the side of Phyllis’s temple with her knuckle.

  Phyllis swatted Hazel’s hand away. “Okay, okay. I get it.” She looked at Gwyn. “Sorry, Gwyn. Your mother’s right. We need her to go with us. I vote to bring the old witch.” She raised her hand.

  Hazel raised her hand next. “I vote to bring the old witch too,” she said with a devious smile.

  Char raised her hand too. “I vote to bring her too.”

  Hazel let out a little cackle. “Three to one. Motion carried. Sorry, Gwynnie. Oh, look. Breakfast’s here.”

  Gwyn sighed as Reign began to serve the table.

  Char smiled. She had a feeling Gwyn was going to be outvoted a lot from now on where Hazel was concerned. “It’s alright, Gwyn. We’ll take good care of her!”

  14

  “It’s too bad we couldn’t convince Loni to go with us to look for the book,” said Char as she put on her turn signal and scanned the road for pedestrians.

  “That old biddy’s plumb crazy if you ask me,” said Phyllis. “She thinks the FBI is after her.”

  Gwyn leaned forward into the front seat. “What makes her think that anyway?”

  “Who knows?” said Char. “I think her warped imagination makes her think that.”

  “We need to keep an eye on her,” sighed Gwyn. “It’s not healthy for her to be all cooped up in that house day after day with no human interaction.”

  “We’ll put that on our to-do list. Right after finding out who stole our spell book and figuring out what to do with Kat’s house,” said Char as she pulled up to a small bungalow on the other side of town. “This is his house,” she said, her voice dropping into a lower register as she came to a stop.

  “What are we going to do?” asked Gwyn.

  “We don’t need to do anything. We’ve got Hazel. We just need to ask him if he has the book,” said Phyllis bluntly.

  Hazel turned her head and stared out the window. “I feel like the class slut on prom night.”

  Phyllis chuckled. “I’m sorry, Hazel. We don’t want you here just because you put out. We all enjoy your company as well. It’s those snappy little retorts we enjoy so much.”

  “Like I said the other day, she doesn’t need any more encouragement on those snappy little retorts. In fact, I think she could tone them down a bit. Don’t you think so, Mother?”

  Hazel snorted air out her nose. “Well, I think you could tone down that fake strawberry-blond hair of yours, but what do I know? I’m just an old lady.”

  “Can we go in now?” asked Char, changing the subject. “I have a roast to get in the oven.”

  “Yes,” agreed Gwyn. “I think sitting out here talking is fruitless and a waste of my time. Let’s go.”

  The four women got out of the car and followed Char up the sidewalk to a simple little tan house with brown shutters. Char knocked on the door. They didn’t have to wait long before a woman in a tight pink sundress, big poofy brown hair, and cleavage to spare opened the door. The sound of a blaring TV poured through the open doorway.

  “May I help you?” she asked.

  “We’re looking for Ruben,” said Char.

  The woman looked surprised, but turned and looked into the house. “Ruby, there are some women here to see you.”

  A man with a head of thick, dark hair popped up from the sofa as if he’d just been poked with a needle. “Women?” he asked.

  Char could hear the nervousness in his voice. Ruben came to the door and seemed to visibly relax when he saw the four old ladies standing in front of him. His head turned slightly as his eyebrows furrowed. “May I help you?”

  “Hi, Ruben,” began
Char, extending her hand. “I’m Char Bailey. You deliver the Aspen Falls Observer, right?”

  He nodded curiously as he shook her hand. “Yes?”

  “You delivered the paper to one of our friends. Katherine Lynde.”

  Ruben’s eyes shifted around uncomfortably as he fidgeted with the chain lock on the door. “Oh, yeah, uh, Kat.” He looked into the house and hollered at the woman who’d answered the door. “Sweetheart, I’m just going to be outside for a moment.” He stepped over the threshold as Char and the rest of the women took a step backwards. When he was all the way out, he shut the door behind him. He looked at Char. “You were at her funeral, weren’t you?”

  Char nodded. “Phyllis and I were,” she said, pointing at Phyllis. “Why were you there?”

  Ruben ran a hand across the back of his neck. “I was kind of friends with Kat,” he admitted.

  Phyllis’s eyes narrowed. “You and Kat were friends?”

  “Sort of,” he said uncomfortably.

  Phyllis eyed Hazel. The old woman blinked but didn’t say anything.

  “And you were the one to find her dead, is that right?” asked Gwyn.

  “Yeah. It took me a while to realize that she wasn’t picking up her papers. I guess I was preoccupied and not really paying attention. It’s a monotonous job. That happens sometimes, you know? I’d get home and wonder if I even delivered to certain streets because I didn’t remember doing it.”

  “So what made you realize it the day you finally found her?” asked Char.

  He shrugged and suddenly seemed suddenly not to know what to do with his arms, crossing them and uncrossing them. Finally, he jammed his hands into his pockets and looked down at his white socks. “I needed to, uh, talk to her. That’s when I realized that her papers had been piling up and a light was on inside her house. I tried knocking, but she wouldn’t come to the door. So I went around to the backyard, and that was when I found her.”