Wisteria Witches (Witch Cozy Mystery and Paranormal Romance)

by Angela Pepper

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dorothy Tibbits creeping around to the exit. I flicked my hand and the door slammed shut and locked. Dorothy let out a strangled cry.

  Slowly, I gathered myself and got to my feet. With a calm face and an otherworldly tone to my voice, I began to speak.

  “Darling! Don't leave yet,” I said to Dorothy. “My witch friends have opened a portal to allow me access to the mortal plane one last time. I have very important business to attend to. I wish to face the person who killed me, and demand an explanation.”

  I looked right into Dorothy's eyes.

  From beside me, Chet said, “Zara, stop this. Enough of your shenanigans. No wife of mine is going to run around casting spells and acting like—” He stopped speaking at the flick of my wrist. With another flick, he was flying back, both arms windmilling. He struck the wall of the boardroom and slid down, his head lolling to one side limply.

  “Husbands,” I said with disgust. “That's why I refused to get married. I've had plenty of suitors over the past hundred and fifty years, but I knew the price to be paid was too high.”

  “Winona?” Zinnia took my hand and stroked it. “How wonderful to see you again. What were you saying before that big beefcake interrupted you so rudely?”

  I turned again to Dorothy, who was trying to hide under the table despite it being transparent. I leaned over the table, stared down into her eyes and said, “Why'd you do it?”

  “What?” Dorothy scrambled backward, putting more space between us but staying under the table. “I don't know what you're talking about,” she mewled.

  I banged my fist on the table. “Dorothy, stop your mewling!”

  She switched from mewling to keening.

  I leaned forward and growled, “I didn't cross over from the spirit plane to hear your nonsense. You'll answer my question and you'll answer it honestly, or else!”

  A hint of emotion twitched across her face. “Or what? You can't hurt me. You can't hurt someone unless they're attacking you. I may not be a witch, but I know about the rules.” She straightened up and gave me a defiant look.

  “But I'm not a witch,” I said coldly. “I'm the undead. I do whatever I want. Watch this.” I pointed at slumped-over Chet and yelled, “Shaazaba!”

  His body jerked in apparent pain. Five seconds later, he went still again, with his head tilted up. Bright red blood ran from his mouth, dripping down his neck in gory rivers.

  I turned to Dorothy and bent all the way down to the table, so my hot breath fogged the glass between us.

  “Dorothy, you're not in Kansas anymore,” I said. “It's time for answers. Why did you murder me, Winona Vander Zalm? Answer now, or I'll turn your insides to blood pudding and your face into a handbag.”

  She screwed up her face and finally burst out, “It wasn't fair how you had that house all to yourself for all those years! You should have shared it with other people. You were best friends with my mother for all those years and you could have stopped her from dying, but you didn't because you were selfish.”

  “Are you saying I should have had roommates? Is that why you killed me?”

  She cried, “It was time for someone else to live in that house. You had your days and you did nothing but throw frivolous parties. You cared more about whatever fancy dress you were going to wear next than you did about other human beings.”

  “Enough!” I whacked the table with my fist. “I didn't come here to be insulted by the likes of you, murderess. I have some questions that need to be answered. The electricity made me lose some of my precious memories. Answer one more question and I'll let you live.”

  “Okay,” Dorothy said. “I'll tell you anything you want to know. Is it about the gadget?” Her face contorted into a hideous grin.

  I made a fist. “Yes. Tell me about the gadget.”

  “My brother made it in his shop, but it was all my design.” She let out a maniacal laugh. “You're too stupid to understand, but I'll put it in simple terms. When you brought in your toaster for cord-lengthening, we increased the voltage by adding a second power source, built right into the toaster. The technology available these days is truly remarkable. We added a tiny spy-grade camera, and we also added cheap parts from a dollar-store mousetrap. Using the camera, I was able to spy on you, and when the moment was right—when you were flaunting your immortality by making those wretched Pop Tarts right next to your tub, I pushed my little red button and sent the toaster sailing into the water.”

  I hissed, “I remember. It sprang up on its own.”

  “Not on its own,” Dorothy spat back. “I did it. Me.” She thumped her chest. “Stupid little Dorothy Tibbits who had to take the real estate exam three times. I did it. I killed the unkillable.”

  Beside me, Chet said, “I think we can wrap things up now.”

  Zinnia patted me on the shoulder. “Good job, Zara.”

  I glared at her, eyes wide. “There is no Zara. There is only Zuul. Zuuuuuuuul.”

  She kept patting my shoulder. “I see somebody's a big Ghostbusters fan. Good. A sense of humor is an excellent quality in a witch.”

  Beneath the table, Dorothy was making sputtering sounds. “Zuul? What? What's going on?” She pointed at Chet. “You're dead. She killed you!”

  Chet wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “These movie props taste terrible,” he said.

  Dorothy gave him a bewildered look and whimpered, “Movie props?”

  “Silly Dorothy,” I said. “How could I cast a spell on Chet when there's no such thing as witchcraft, or ghosts?” I turned to Zinnia and said, “Please tell me all the cameras in this room were recording.”

  She gave me two thumbs up. “All systems are go,” she said. “The police should have an easy job once they get this footage, along with the modified toaster. Confessions are great, but juries love to see physical evidence.”

  I gave her my own thumbs up. “It might be a smidge rusty from the salt, but I've got an evil toaster I'll be happy to re-home at the Wisteria Police Department Evidence Locker!”

  Chapter 27

  One Week Later

  “Zara Riddle, if you're not a witch, how did you know the killer was Dorothy Tibbits? She wasn't even in town at the time of the murder.”

  I gave the detective my most innocent look. His name was Bentley, like the luxury car company. Detective Bentley. And he was cute, in a foxy-older-man way. I'd been trying—unsuccessfully—to set him up with Zinnia.

  “First of all, witches aren't real,” I said.

  He nodded slowly, watching me carefully with keen eyes the same steely gray as the hair at his temples.

  “Witches aren't real,” he agreed. “And neither are ghosts. But Dorothy Tibbits was a believer, which was why your theatrical performance worked on her.” He scratched his cheek. “What was that purple fog that came out of the mirrored jewelry box? I've been asking around at the local magic shops—all two of them—and nobody can identify that particular prop.”

  “You should ask my aunt,” I said. “You could take her for a drink sometime. She's a lot more fun after a glass of wine, or seven.”

  “Ah, sure,” he said flatly. “Never mind about the purple smoke then.” He glanced around the Wisteria Police Department's interview room, making a funny face at the ceiling-mounted camera. “Walk me through how you knew it was Dorothy.”

  “At first, I thought she was just a terrible real estate agent. When I first came to look at the house, she had the Open House signs pointing the wrong way, the lights off, and boxes of debris blocking the doorway.”

  Detective Bentley nodded. “Not everyone strives for excellence in their job.” He stopped talking, and I heard his silent addition of the way I do. Bentley was a striver, and he was, indeed, excellent. If we did cross paths again, I'd have to be careful to keep my powers hidden.

  “I toured the house anyway, and I fell in love with the home, but the more eager I got, the stranger Dorothy acted. She insisted I have a look at her house, whi
ch was also for sale, before I made an offer. She all but begged me to buy any other house instead, but I downloaded a standard offer-to-purchase and registered it with her office. She had no choice but to present it to the estate executor, and Chet accepted. The next week, she took her own house off the market, but I didn't realize that until I started investigating.”

  “You mean snooping,” Bentley said. “You're not a licensed investigator. You were snooping.” He gave the room's camera a victorious I-got-her look. “But how did you come to suspect her?”

  “I'm glad you asked! It was my gut, actually. Did you know that people really do feel and think with their guts? The microbial balance in our digestive system affects many of our thoughts and behavior.”

  “Your gut told you?”

  “Yes,” I said, leaving out the part where a ghostly finger wrote the words KILLER DINNER on my foggy bathroom mirror. I also couldn't tell him how the ghost had angrily knocked Dorothy's housewarming gifts off the fireplace mantle.

  So, I told him a half-truth. “Detective Bentley, my amazingly intuitive gut told me. It said her killer had been at my recent dinner party, so that narrowed down my list of suspects.”

  “Fascinating,” Bentley said flatly.

  “At first, I suspected my co-worker, Frank Wonder, because he'd been overly interested in the bathtub on the night of my dinner party. Plus he and Winona had history with a who-wore-it-best thing over a certain sequined pantsuit.”

  Bentley blinked and waved his pen for me to continue.

  “Then I suspected my aunt, who's a treasure of a woman once you get to know her. She co-wrote a cookbook with the deceased, years ago. When I spoke to her about it, though, she had only fond memories of their time co-creating recipes. Like I said, Zinnia is a real catch.”

  He waved the pen again.

  “But it was my boss, Katy Carmichael, who tipped me off. She told me about the rumors. Have you heard the one where my silly old house is a fountain of youth?” I laughed. “Can you believe such a thing?”

  “I'm a man of science,” he said.

  “Me, too. A woman of science who believes in the collected wisdom of carefully researched and annotated knowledge. I am a librarian.”

  “Yes, we've covered that. Several times.”

  I continued, “But Dorothy Tibbits is not a woman of science. She's superstitious, and she believed the house would prolong her life and delay aging. She killed the homeowner to get it on the market, but she couldn't raise the funds right away, because the market's been so flat lately. She planned to let the listing get stale and then put in a lowball offer once she'd gotten her money freed up from the sale of her own house.”

  “That was her motivation,” he said.

  “Indeed.” I rested my elbows on the cheap plastic surface of the folding table and tented my fingers, supervillain-style. “But what Dorothy didn't account for was the resourcefulness of a broke single mother looking to start fresh in a wonderful new town. I saw through the dust and clutter, spotting a diamond in the rough.” I nodded like a bobblehead. “A woman in search of her dream home is a powerful thing.”

  “Almost like magic?”

  “Almost.” I glanced up at the two-way glass behind the detective just in time to see my eyes twinkle.

  “Hmm,” he said.

  “And then I took a closer look at the toaster and came up with my crazy plan,” I said. “And you know the rest, since it's all on those videos we gave you.”

  Detective Bentley nodded, clicked his pen, and closed the hardcover book he'd been using to take notes.

  “We're done for now,” he said.

  I gave him my warmest smile. “Come see me at the library if you ever need my help again.”

  He made a disagreeable sound, as though he wanted to deny that a woman like me could ever be of help to him but thought better of speaking his mind.

  After I left the police station, I walked to my aunt's house, where I found Zinnia and my daughter in the flower-festooned sitting room with the curtains drawn. Zinnia was playing teacher, showing Zoey how to hold her hands and whisper the spell to make a puff of purple smoke. It wasn't going well.

  I took a seat on the tasseled sofa next to a frustrated Zoey, who whined, “There's no point! I'll never be able to do magic.”

  “Patience,” Zinnia said. “You must have faith, and you must have patience.”

  “Hang in there,” I said, wrapping my arm around her shoulders and squeezing her to my side.

  Zinnia's purple smoke reached my nostrils and made my mouth water. It smelled exactly like caramel corn, except twice as delicious.

  “Zara, how are you doing?” Zinnia asked.

  “Great, except I miss my ghost pal. Winona's completely gone now, which is bad news for my culinary future.”

  Zoey interjected, “We had peanut butter sandwiches for dinner last night, and she forgot the peanut butter.”

  “But we did have a scary red hand floating in the punch bowl.”

  “Mom, pouring a bottle of wine into a bowl doesn't make it punch.”

  I snorted. “Smarty-pants teenagers and their fixation on details like ingredients.”

  Zinnia said solemnly, “Because of your gift with wandering spirits, you may attract another one soon.”

  “I hope it's a chef,” Zoey said. “Or maybe a mime. Those are the clowns who don't talk at all, right?”

  “Ouch,” I said, pulling my arm away from her shoulders. “Someone's in need of a snack, or a nap, or something.”

  “Sorry,” Zoey said. “Excuse me for a minute while I go splash some water on my face.” She got to her feet and left for the washroom.

  Once Zinnia and I were alone, she said softly, “You and I must also keep the faith.”

  I whispered, “Is it possible Zoey's not a witch after all? You said it skips generations sometimes, and as far as we know, my mother didn't have it.”

  Zinnia didn't speak, but her expression told me what I needed to know. Nothing was certain. The future held only blank pages.

  I unwound my silk scarf and folded it across my lap. Zoey was still in the washroom with the door closed.

  I nodded at the small crystals that served as the sparking point for the smoke plumes. “Do you mind if I try?”

  She scoffed, “Knock yourself out. Though I shouldn't say that, because you haven't been doing your assigned readings or drills. You'll probably cast the spell wrong and actually knock yourself out. Back when I was a novice witch, I also thought I was too good for drills and—”

  She stopped talking. I couldn't see her face through the thick, sweet, purple fog hanging in the air, but I imagined her jaw had dropped open.

  The truth was, I had been doing my drills. I had been practicing, and I was determined to do everything that was prescribed for a novice witch. I should have told my aunt as much, but it was so fun to see her splutter in frustration over what a “natural” I was with magic.

  When the purple fog finally dissipated, Zoey was standing behind her aunt's chair with an irritated look on her face.

  “Show-off,” Zoey said.

  I gave her one of my motherly looks. “Zoey, when you bring home straight A's on your report card do I call you a show-off, or do I take you out for ice cream sundaes?”

  Her face contorted as she worked through the logic.

  “You've always been very supportive,” she said with a sigh. “I've compared notes with other people my age, and I can say, without irony, that you're basically the best mother in the entire universe.”

  “It helps that I have the best daughter,” I said. “I really lucked out with you, kid.”

  Aunt Zinnia cleared her throat.

  “And we also have a wonderful aunt,” I said.

  “We do,” Zoey agreed, smiling. “Should we take her out for ice cream sundaes?”

  “Right after we ambush her with a group hug. Quick, Zoey! She's trying to get away! Grab her arms!”

  Giggling, we descended upon Aunt Zinnia
and squeezed her until she was begging for mercy and laughing as hard as both of us.

  We packed away the spell books and casting supplies, opened the curtains to let the sunshine into the room, and left the house in search of ice cream sundaes.

  “I know the perfect place,” my aunt said. “It's run by a witch, of course. All the best cafes around the world are run by witches.”

  “Of course they are,” I said.

  The three of us linked arms as we walked along the sidewalk, laughing and comparing notes on our favorite sundae toppings.

  “Don't let me eat more than one,” I told the other Riddles. “I've got a date tonight with Chet, and I need to impress him with how much food I can put away in one sitting.”

  Zoey groaned. “And you wonder why you don't have a boyfriend.”

  Zinnia covered her mouth with her free hand and giggled. “He's such an interesting man,” she said. “And I think he enjoyed pretending that you two had spontaneously gotten married.”

  “That was his idea,” I said. “He didn't think Dorothy would fall for our clever ruse if we didn't make the lie enormous. He says you need to go big or go home. Do you think he's a former con man? He sure knows a lot about tricking people.”

  “I'm sure there's more to Chet than meets the eye,” Zinnia said. “In addition to the fur and the claws.”

  “He's nice,” Zoey said. “And if he's good to my mother, that's all that matters.”

  We reached the end of the street and turned left at Zinnia's guidance. I could almost taste the ice cream already. I was in the mood for caramel syrup, too.

  All three of us were quiet as we passed other people out for strolls with their kids and dogs.

  Once we were out of hearing distance of regulars—regulars was the word Zinnia used for non-supernaturals—Zinnia asked, “Did Chet ever find out more about the scary bird that attacked you?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “And since Dorothy Tibbits didn't turn into anything furry or feathery to get away from the cops, we can now assume it wasn't her.” I looked down at my feet on the sidewalk for a minute. It always fascinated me to focus on my shoes and let the sidewalk be a gray blur, then focus on a spot of concrete and let my shoes be the blurs.