by Angie Cabot
“I’m okay.”
“I sense dark energy around you. Do you want me to do a reading? My cards are in my purse.”
She meant tarot cards.
“No need.”
Balthazar came in with two cups of coffee. He stepped over the cat, and handed one to me.
“If it needs more sugar, let me know.”
“Thank you. I’m sure it’s fine.”
He sat on the sofa beside Diana. “Morgan is spaced out again.”
“What else is new? She wandered into our bedroom last night while you were sleeping.”
“Really?”
“Said the bathrooms were occupied.”
“All of them?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t ask.”
Balthazar sipped his coffee, and Diana set her book on the table.
I sipped my coffee, and it tasted good. Not too sweet, but not too bitter. “Thanks again, Balthazar,” I said. “This is perfect.”
“I have skills,” he said. “Once again, I want to apologize for being insensitive earlier.”
“No problem,” I said.
“Insensitive?” Diana asked.
“About her aunt.”
Diana nodded. “Terrible thing. I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“Carl and I will try to get the Jeep started in a bit. The sun is out now, and with a little luck, we might be able to get to the main road.”
“Did I hear my name?” Carl said, entering the drawing room.
“I thought you were going to take a nap,” Balthazar said.
“I stretched out on the bed, closed my eyes, but it’s too bright in my room. Any coffee left?”
“In the kitchen. Unless Morgan poured it out to watch it swirl down the drain in baffling fashion.”
“Be right back,” Carl said.
“Thanks for the warning,” Diana said. “Oh, can you bring me a glass of water? My husband is more interested in Kathy’s needs than mine.”
“Kathy’s been through a lot lately,” Carl said. “But I’ll bring you the water. You want ice in it?”
“No.”
He went into the kitchen, and came back with a glass of water, and a cup of coffee. He tripped over the cat on his way to Diana. He staggered forward, and coffee and water splashed on the floor.
Nico hissed at him, and ran off.
“You better run,” Carl said.
“I’ll get a towel,” I said.
Carl gave Diana what remained of her water as I went in search of a towel.
In the kitchen, Morgan was lying inside the outline where my aunt died.
“I’m one with death even in life,” Morgan said. “My chakras are balanced, and breath keeps my soul expanding and retracting and expanding and retracting…”
Part of me wanted to pull her up and read her the riot act for desecrating the place my aunt died. And part of me wondered what in God’s name she’d been smoking.
The coffee emergency kept me on point. I grabbed a dish towel from a drawer, and went back to the drawing room.
I tossed the towel to Carl, and he dabbed at the stained carpet. The brown stain looked bad on the white.
“There goes the deposit,” I said.
Chapter Thirteen
Nico walked over to the coffee stain, sniffed it, looked at me, and meowed.
“Does it smell good?” I asked.
Nico padded over to my chair, and jumped into my lap.
“You’ve got a new friend,” Carl said tossing the towel on the table.
“Indeed,” Balthazar said.
Diana sipped her water, and smiled. “Nico is a good judge of character. If she likes you, I like you.”
“Great,” Carl said. “The cat hates me.”
“Oh, I doubt she’s ever given you a thought.”
“Except when you stepped on her,” Balthazar said.
“I rest my case,” Carl said.
“You want her to like you?” Diana asked.
“I don’t care one way or the other. It’s just a cat.”
“Well, if you do want her to like you, take a piece of paper, and write it down. Fold it up, hold it in your left hand, and meditate on it, sending positive thoughts to her.”
“Well, I’m definitely not going to waste my time on that.”
They kept talking, but I tuned them out because all I could think was write it down. Aunt Liz had been writing in her leather journal when Emma and Jenn saw her.
But I hadn’t seen that journal anywhere.
Which got me thinking. Aunt Liz used to write everything down in her journals. What if she wrote down who killed her? She predicted her death. Maybe she predicted the murderer, too.
If I were a killer who wanted to hide a leather journal, where would I put it?
“I’ll be back,” I said. “Move it, Nico.”
She hopped down.
“Come here, Nico,” Diana said and leaned down, holding out her hand.
Nico looked the other way, and licked her paw.
“Obedient little cuss, isn’t she?” Balthazar said.
I left them there, crossed the foyer into the library, and studied the shelves.
With the books packed in super tight, there was no way to slide a journal between any of them, but it could easily be slid on top in the gap between the books and the next shelf.
I scanned the shelves.
Zen had been in one of the alcoves, and put a book on top. I went to that shelf, found the cartography book she’d stuck on top, and re-shelved it.
On a whim, I knelt to look at the bottom shelves. On the right hand side of the alcove, Aunt Liz’s leather journal sat on top of the books on the very bottom shelf, shoved back in the shadows where no one would normally look. Zen was the only person I’d seen in the area. Could she have planted the book? Yes. Did she? I didn’t know, but her name jumped to the top of my suspects list.
I pulled the book out, and sat down on the floor, leaning against the shelves.
The leather journal had a strap that snapped closed around the center. I unsnapped it, and opened the book.
A Journal of My Last Days by Elizabeth Henderson.
A prediction? Or was she just thinking how old she was? With Aunt Liz, either made sense.
I flipped a few pages.
March 20 - Clara was rude to a customer today. That’s not like her. The customer placed a glass figurine on a shelf, and Clara told him to move it because Hannah Rose would knock it off and break it. Clara cares more about people and animals that don’t exist than she does about the living.
I turned more pages.
June 1 - Rabbits, rabbits. We need to call a plumber to fix the pipes in the house.
Boring.
I turned to the last page she’d written on.
February 24 - Katherine missed the turn-off to Bostwick Manor. It’s like she doesn’t remember the way to anyplace at all.
It went on, but I stopped there. On the left side, she had a list of our names in alphabetical order with abbreviations beside them.
Zenna Astrid - m.w.
Carl Kent - f.w.
Sandra Quentin - m.b.
Diana Raven - m.p.
Todd Raven - f.p.
Katherine Sinclair - f.m.
Morgan Wightman - m.h.
What did the abbreviations mean?
M.W. Murderous Witch
F.W. Foolish Warlock
M.B. Murderous Bookkeeper?
M.P. Murders People?
F.P. Fire Please?
F.M. Find Murderer?
M.H. Murder with Herbs?
I had no idea. But whoever killed my aunt, took the time to hide the book, so it must be important. I closed it, and turned it over, looking for any clues. Fingerprints. Food stains. Anything.
But it was just a normal leather journal.
I pushed myself to my feet, hid the journal under my shirt, and made my way out of the library, up the stairs, and into my room. There had
to be clues in the journal, and I wanted to find them.
As soon as I sat on my bed, I heard someone yelling from the other side of the house. I tucked the journal under my pillow so it would be out of sight, then went back downstairs.
Zen stood at the top of the other staircase waving an empty athame case.
“Which one of you planted this in my room?” she yelled.
Balthazar, Diana, and Carl stood at the bottom of the staircase staring up at her. They looked confused.
Morgan stumbled down the hall to join us, one hand on her forehead, eyes half-closed. She held her other arm out to the side to catch her balance on the wall as she moved.
Sandra exited her room, and looked across the foyer at Zen. The wings of the mansion were not connected across the front by a landing, and view was partially obscured by the chandelier. Sandra gripped the railing.
“Is that the case from the murder weapon?”
“It could be any of the cases,” Zen said. “It’s not mine, though! Which of you losers is trying to frame me?”
“What do you mean?” Balthazar asked.
Zen held up the case and shook it at him. “This was in your bathroom earlier. I just went to my room to get a pack of cigarettes, and found it on my dresser. Care to explain that, Todd?”
“I’m lost,” Balthazar said, ignoring the fact that she’d called him by his real name. If it bothered him, it didn’t show on his face. “What do you mean it was in my bathroom?”
“Yours and Diana’s,” Zen said. “Tell him, Kathy.”
I nodded. “There was an empty case on the vanity in your bathroom,” I said.
“What were you doing in our room?” Diana asked. “Balthazar told you our athames were in the Jeep.”
“And there were two athames in the Jeep,” I said.
“So what gives you the right to violate our privacy to search our room?”
“The fact that Aunt Liz was murdered,” I said. “We searched all the rooms.”
“Well, that wasn’t in our room earlier,” Diana said.
Morgan stopped and rubbed her temples. “Can you please keep your voice down?”
Diana glared at her. “Bad reaction to whatever you’ve been drinking and smoking, Morgan?”
“I have the monster of all headaches.”
“Shut up.” Diana stormed over to me and jabbed her finger into my chest, then pointed at my face. “For all we know, you killed your own aunt and now you’re trying to pin it on one of us. We have no reason to trust you. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the outsider. Why I ever tried to be nice to you is beyond me.”
I backed up as she yelled at me. Confrontations were never my strong suit. And I was used to being the outsider. But I didn’t kill my aunt, and the accusation burned in my stomach.
“Please stop yelling at me,” I said. “I would never kill anyone.”
Balthazar took his wife by the shoulders and turned her away from me. “Calm down, Diana,” he said. “This is difficult for all of us.”
Sandra shook her head, and went back to her room. Thanks for the vote of confidence.
Carl walked over to me, and reached out, but didn’t touch my shoulder. It was as if his first instinct was to comfort me, but then thought better of it.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“What about me?” Zen asked. “Someone is trying to frame me.”
“I’m all right,” I said to Carl. To Zen I said, “You were there when we found the empty case. You were also the last one to come downstairs after my aunt’s body was discovered.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. Carl and Morgan went all over the house on their telephone quest. They could have planted evidence wherever they wanted.”
“Why did it have to snow so bad?” Carl asked. “The cops could have come, found the case, asked their questions, and solved this thing so we could all go home.”
“Do you have anything to say for yourself, Carl?” Balthazar asked.
“I just did. I wanted the cops to handle this. I didn’t plant anything anywhere. I don’t have a criminal mind.”
“Then maybe Morgan did,” Zen said.
Morgan lowered her hands from her temples. “You look like an angel up there, Zen,” she said.
“Cut the nonsense,” Zen said. “I don’t believe you have a weed hangover.”
“My brain is all foggy,” Morgan said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten all those brownies yesterday.”
“She seemed alert last night and this morning,” Zen said. “Hey, Morgan, why don’t you go take a cold shower, or drink some coffee. Let the caffeine wake up your brain so you can confess.”
Morgan blinked a few times. “Confess to what?” she asked. “I didn’t do anything.”
“This is getting us nowhere,” I said.
“Well, we need to get somewhere,” Zen said. “I can’t take any more of this.”
“Fine. Are we all in accord with the fact that I didn’t kill my own aunt?”
Nobody responded. They just looked at one another.
“Really?” I asked.
“Your aunt was a wicked witch,” Diana said. “If we were back at the store, the only person I wouldn’t suspect is Crazy Clara. The postman had as much reason to murder her as any of us here.”
“But the postman isn’t here.”
“I’m just saying—”
“I know, I know, everyone hated my aunt.”
“The truth hurts.”
“What sucks most is that none of us even have a solid alibi,” Carl said.
“We do,” Diana said, pointing at herself and Balthazar. “We were together all night.”
“Not all night,” Carl said.
Balthazar jumped in. “What Carl is saying is that he saw me when he was coming out of the bathroom last night.”
“What?” Diana asked.
“I needed to use the restroom, but I didn’t want to wake you,” he said.
“You didn’t mind waking Zen,” Carl said.
“You’re out of line,” Balthazar said.
“Come on, dude, everyone knows about you and Zen.”
“What?” Diana said a little too loudly for me to believe she was really surprised. She whirled, and pointed at Zen. “You shameless little hussy. Are you sleeping with my husband?”
Zen shrugged. “Truth be told, I’ve been sleeping with both of you.”
“Wait,” Balthazar said. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“But—”
She gave him a sad smile. “We’ll wait while your mind catches up.”
“But—”
“I have needs,” Diana said to Balthazar. “Needs you can’t fill.”
I clapped my hands to get everyone’s attention. “Hey, before this turns into a big fight, or a case of too much information being shared to those of us who really don’t want to know, everybody take a deep breath.”
Morgan’s eyes widened. “Oh, I can do that. Inhale deeply, hold the energy in your third chakra, then let it out for a count of four.”
Next thing I knew, everyone was yelling at everyone else.
Morgan clamped her hands over her ears and slid to the floor.
Carl tried to sneak out of the foyer to the drawing room, but I rushed over and grabbed him.
“Oh no you don’t,” I said. “If I have to hear all of this, you do too.”
“I heard too much last night,” he said.
“That’s enough!” Sandra yelled from the top of the stairs.
Everyone stopped arguing, and stared at her.
“I can’t meditate when all of you are screaming,” she said in her normal softer voice.
“I didn’t know you had it in you to yell,” Balthazar said.
“Let’s solve a few mysteries right here and now,” Sandra said. “By show of hands, who knew that Balthazar was sleeping with Zen?”
She raised her own hand. Carl raised his hand. Morgan, too.
Sandra lowered her hand. “S
o it’s not a surprise to anyone that he snuck into her room last night.”
“So you were listening,” I said.
“People three counties over were listening,” Sandra said. “We need to figure out which of us is a murderer. But we can’t trust one person to investigate, though I, for one, don’t think Kathy would kill her own aunt, so she gets a pass from me.”
“So what do we do?” Carl asked.
“What if Sandra and I interview each of you?” I asked. “With two of us working together, we can figure it out.”
“I want to conduct the interviews,” Zen said.
“You’ll be interviewed,” I said. “In fact, I want you to be the first one we talk to.”
“Why me?”
“So you can be the first person cleared,” I lied.
Chapter Fourteen
While Sandra got set up in the library, I went to my room and closed the door behind myself. I thought about Aunt Liz lying out there in the snowdrift all alone. Tears welled in my eyes, but I wiped them away. I needed to be strong. It was something I could do. I grabbed the notebook from beneath the pillow, and flipped to the last filled page. I looked again at the names and the abbreviations beside them.
They still didn’t make any sense to me. I looked at the final page and finished reading what Aunt Liz wrote within an hour or so of her death.
February 24 - Katherine missed the turn-off to Bostwick Manor. It’s like she doesn’t remember the way to anyplace at all. But who can blame her? She’s been lost all her life, and now I’m placing a burden on her she didn’t ask for and doesn’t deserve. I’ve poked the bear, and I fully expect to be bitten. Better to get it over with now. Dying fast beats rotting away in a hospital bed. If they hadn’t been following me every day for the last week, this might not work. I hope I’m wrong, but if not, Katherine is smarter than anyone suspects. If anyone can handle this, it
And the journal entry ended right there in the middle of a sentence. I’d be a better sleuth if she’d have only written the killer’s name.
I flipped back a few pages and found one of my answers.
January 15 - The answer to my weight loss has been staring me in the face all this time, but the doctors confirmed it today. I didn’t expect to have terminal weight loss.
I turned back a few more pages, keeping January 15th open with my finger.
December 1 - So tired. Always so tired. I’ll keep putting on a good face because Clara may break from reality if she finds out how I’m feeling.
