by Angie Cabot
“She’s snippy, but the only problem I had is the one I told you about. She doesn’t want me writing on the clock. That irritates me, but she’s the boss, so I have to abide by her wishes.”
“Carl,” I said. “Have you noticed any friction between Sandra and my Aunt Liz?”
“Nothing beyond what she said last night about her being slow. But at least she’s accurate.”
“That ought to do it, then,” I said.
“She got off easy,” Carl said.
“I already talked to her earlier,” I said.
“Right. I’ll send Diana in. I hope you have more questions for her.”
“Oh, I do,” I said.
Carl got up to leave, and I tucked the notebook under my leg to keep track of it. The more I thought about it, the more the notebook seemed like a waste of time. I really thought those abbreviations meant something else, but Carl’s take changed my mind.
Back to square one.
Chapter Sixteen
“Did you murder Elizabeth?” Sandra asked.
“Of course not,” Diana said.
“Good enough for me,” Sandra said.
Diana calmly turned to me. She looked a question at me.
“She always does that,” I said.
“And has she extracted a confession from anyone?”
“Of course not.”
“I’ll save you some time,” she said. “Todd did it.”
“I’m sorry?”
“While you’ve been in here interviewing people, I’ve been meditating on what we know. That led me to the only conclusion that makes any sense. My husband is the murderer. Every bit of evidence I can see points to him. He slipped out of the room last night at eleven, and if Carl is to be believed, made a pit stop with Zen. Of course, Carl thinks everyone is sleeping with Zen, but that’s irrelevant. Todd didn’t come back to bed until one in the morning. If he went to see Zen, it was mostly to take her athame.”
“So he stole her athame, and was stupid enough to put the empty case in your bathroom?”
“No. Carl put it in the bathroom to protect Zen.”
“How would he know to do that?”
“When he went looking for the phone, he went straight up to Zen’s room. Couldn’t find her athame, so he took his own blade and hid it, putting the empty case in my bathroom.”
So Balthazar hadn’t told her about the two knives I found outside.
“Interesting theory,” I said.
“I’ve read a lot of books. I know how this works.”
It made more sense to me that if Todd was the killer, that he used his liaison with Zen to take her athame, and when he left, he saw Carl was in the restroom, so he slipped into his room to take his. But that was crazy speculation on my part because Carl could have tossed the cases out the window himself.
“Did you know your husband was having an affair with Zen? Be honest. Your reaction was a bit over the top.”
“Yes,” she said. “I knew. He doesn’t have a stealth mode to activate the way Morgan does. I figured if I could pretend it wasn’t happening, maybe we could get through it. We’ve had this issue before.”
“Does the affair bother you?”
“Todd is polyamorous. I’ve known that about him since I first started dating him. He wasn’t going to change because we put rings on our fingers.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Of course it bothers me,” she snapped.
I flinched in my seat. “I’m sorry.”
She sighed. “I’ve had to accept the fact that there will always be somebody younger and prettier. But he always comes home to me in the end.”
“And you’re certain he killed Elizabeth.”
“As certain as I can be based on what I know. It makes sense because she was going to fire us. He’s kept close tabs on her for the last few weeks, and we talked about it a few days ago. She wants him gone. But we’re sort of a package deal in her eyes. Or, we were.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s true. We were hired together, so of course if one of us goes, we both go. The first three years we worked at the Eye of Ra were so wonderful. Elizabeth was nicer, Clara wasn’t quite as crazy, the customers were loyal and fun, we were constantly learning, and these retreats were delightful.”
“What happened?”
“Zen happened. Then Morgan. Then Sandra.” She looked at Sandra. “Oh yes, you play the quiet little mousy librarian type, but Todd got to you, too. Isn’t that right?”
Sandra flushed.
I turned to Sandra. “Are you kidding me?”
“It’s lonely in Cassandra Springs. I’m sorry.”
“I’ve heard of people playing musical beds in books and movies, but not in real life. I’m a little bit shocked. With Balthazar?”
“He was nice to me.”
“He has a way of looking at you,” Diana said. “It’s like you’re the only person in the world who matters to him. His quiet confidence is impressive. I guess I’d rather share him than not be with him at all.”
“And Aunt Liz knew all of this?”
She nodded.
“So why would he kill her?”
“She warned him not to seduce you.”
“Me?” I fought to keep from laughing because I didn’t find him the least bit attractive.
Again, Diana nodded. “She told him this last week, and yesterday morning. And after he tried to flirt with you, she told Carl to pass on a message to stay away from you.”
“Carl didn’t say anything to me about that.”
“The message was for Todd, not for you. Elizabeth knew how vulnerable you would be. Freshly divorced, and gaining weight with zero prospects in Cassandra Springs.”
I sucked in my stomach.
Diana leaned forward and touched my knee. “Don’t feel bad. When Todd got together with Zen, I put on eighty or ninety pounds. I managed to get rid of it, though.”
“You look amazing,” I said.
“Anyway, Todd and I are in debt up to our ears. He refuses to file for bankruptcy, so we’re in a world of hurt if we lose our jobs.”
“Why aren’t you protecting him?”
She slumped in her seat. “Because I’m tired.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“No,” she said. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I should have seen this coming. Strange how psychics can never see what’s coming for them or their loved ones. Only for strangers.”
“Next time, conjure up the winning Lotto numbers for a customer and have them split it.”
“If only it worked that way,” she said.
“I guess I’ll need to talk to your husband next.”
“Go easy on him.”
I gave her a soft smile. “I will.”
“Good, because if he suspects you’re on to him, he’ll kill you, too.”
Chapter Seventeen
I got up to stretch my legs when Diana left. Nico strolled into the library, looked at the books, and casually eased her way over to one of the shelves. She looked at me, then stood on her hind legs and dug her claws into a row of books as if they were a scratching post.
“No!” I yelled, and raced over.
Nico finished clawing the books, then sat and looked at me like she’d done nothing wrong.
I ran my hands over the spines, and felt the claw marks.
“Bad cat,” I said.
Nico ignored me.
“Don’t you ever use books as a scratching post. You know better than that.”
Nico twitched her tail, got up, and wandered out of the library as Balthazar approached. Nico swatted at his ankles, then darted away.
“Stupid cat,” Balthazar said, watching her go as he entered the library.
“She clawed the books,” I said.
“Were they about dogs?” Balthazar asked. “She really hates those.”
“No, they were about World War One.”
“Before her time, so of zero interest to her.”
He shrugged. “With cats, who knows? They could be our alien overlords without us having clue one about it.”
“We’d have to ask Carl.”
“Why?”
“He’s the alien expert, right?”
“Oh, mostly UFO stuff, but over the last ten years or so, it’s been more ancient alien stuff.”
“I read Chariots of the Gods when I was a little girl,” I said.
“You have my sympathy.”
“I loved that book.”
“One gets deeper insight with one of the Hans Holzer ghost hunting books.”
I’d never read anything by Hans Holzer, so I didn’t know how to take that. “Shall we get started?” I asked, gesturing for him to lead the way to the chairs.
Sandra was flipping through Aunt Liz’s journal.
Balthazar pointed to it as he sat. “Ah, Elizabeth’s journal.” He didn’t seem surprised about it. “Any good insights in there?”
“Elizabeth had cancer,” Sandra said.
“She never told me that.”
“She didn’t tell anyone,” I said, taking my seat.
“Where did you find that?” Balthazar asked, but he sounded more curious than concerned.
“Ask Kathy,” Sandra said. “She’s the one who found it.”
“Someone put it here in the library,” I said. “I’m guessing the killer hid it because I can’t see Aunt Liz shelving it in here.”
“Fascinating,” Balthazar said. “But why hide the book when he or she could have simply left it in plain sight?”
“Do you have any ideas on that front?” I asked.
“Anything I could think of would be mere speculation.”
“Feel free to speculate.”
“Perhaps there’s incriminating evidence. But then the killer would likely burn the book instead of hiding it.”
“Unless they didn’t have time to read it to see what it said.”
He nodded. “Save it for later?”
“Wouldn’t you have done something like that?”
“I would have left it on the dining room table,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because hiding it makes it seem important. If it were on the table, someone might have flipped through it a bit, but unless there’s something salacious, which knowing your aunt, there would not be, or something pertinent, in which case one would have to assume she were really psychic, it wouldn’t be relevant.”
“Why not?”
“Because she wouldn’t take the time to write so-and-so killed me while she was getting stabbed.”
“Sliding down Occam’s Razor,” I said.
“Ouch.”
Sandra kept flipping through the journal.
“Sandra,” I said. “Do you have any questions for Balthazar?”
She looked up. “Hmm? Oh, yes. Did you murder Elizabeth?”
He laughed. “Of course not.”
“Okay,” she said, and went back to the journal’s pages.
“Are you looking for anything in particular in there?” he asked.
“Not really.”
“Have you found anything interesting?”
“Elizabeth wanted to fire me as soon as she could find a replacement, but she said that out loud, so I suppose the only thing I’ve learned is that the things she wrote about us in here are things she said to us in person. The things she didn’t share were about her health, or Clara’s state of mind.”
“May I please have the journal?” I asked.
She frowned. “I guess.”
She handed it to me. I flipped to the page with abbreviations, and Balthazar gave me an answer very similar to Carl’s. Job titles.
“How did you feel when you found the body?” I asked.
He raised an eyebrow. “Shocked,” he said. “My first thought was that Zen had finally gone over the edge.”
“You think Zen did it?”
“Elizabeth was going to fire her, and had retained an attorney to seek legal action.”
“For what?”
“Zen has been stealing customers to start her own shop. She cut back on her hours at the Eye of Ra to establish the Zen Room. She advertised on CraigsList, but also tried to commandeer clients from the Eye of Ra.”
“If she has clients who like her, they’d be likely to follow.”
“Sure, but she went into the computer to get a list of all the customers, and has been trying to get them to go to her instead of the Eye of Ra.”
“You were with Zen last night.”
He nodded. “I was. I fell asleep in her bed, and when I woke up, she wasn’t there. I figured she’d gone to the restroom, so I crept back into my own room.”
“And got in bed with your wife, on whom you’ve been cheating.”
“We have sort of an open marriage.”
“As in she was faithful to you, but you were free to roam?”
“She wasn’t faithful to me. She was with Zen, too.”
“And you were surprised by that.”
He shrugged. “A little.”
“Did you feel betrayed?”
“A smidge,” he said holding his thumb and forefinger a quarter inch apart.
“That’s how she felt every time you cheated on her.”
“But she knows that’s who I am. She knew it when she married me.”
“And she put up with it because she loves you.”
“And I love her. I’m polyamorous.”
“But Diana isn’t. Let me ask you something else. Did you ever try to work your charm on my Aunt Liz?”
“I flirted with her a bit when we first started working at the store, but she wasn’t interested.”
“How about Aunt Clara?”
“A little too cray-cray for my taste,” he said. He held up his hands as if placing them on a straight line. “There’s a scale of hotness to crazy that I can handle. The hotter the woman,” he raised one hand, “the more crazy I can put up with.” He raised the other to about the same level. Then he raised the crazy hand higher and lowered the hot hand. “Invert that chart and I’m not going there.”
His answers seemed open and genuine, and I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe everyone. He might have had the opportunity to toss the cases out the window, but Zen and Carl had the same opportunities. I felt like the world’s worst amateur sleuth. I could have ended there, but I decided to press on.
“You keep yourself in pretty good shape,” I said.
“I work out three times a week at the gym over on Elm Street.”
“Gotta stay fit for the ladies,” I said.
“I’m sixty-two years old,” he said. “I work out so I can live a longer, healthier life. If that makes me more attractive to Diana and Zen, that’s a fringe benefit.”
“Are you seeing anyone else?”
“Not right now. Are you applying for a position?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll close that door, and if you change your mind in the future, you can knock.”
“That’s never going to happen. If I’m with a man, he needs to be committed to only me.”
“Hear, hear, sister,” Sandra said.
“Anything else?”
“Why are you throwing Zen under the bus?”
“Because killing people is wrong.”
“Good to know we agree on something so basic.”
“Does that mean you’re knocking?”
“No.”
“Can’t blame me for trying.”
“Actually, I can, and I do. Why was my aunt considering firing you?”
“Excuse me? Why would she do that?”
“I’m asking you.”
He shrugged. “If it’s true, this is the first I’ve heard about it. I know Diana has been struggling with clients, but…” He sighed. “If this is about that sales ticket I forgot to ring up, that was a one-time thing. Sandra caught the error because the till came up twenty-five dollars long.”
She nodded. “Could have been a test run.”
“Rain was in the middle of a refund, so I tucked the money into the open drawer figuring I’d ring it up later. I’d worry more about shortages than overages.”
He had a point.
“Is Morgan still all spaced out?”
“She’s coming back to Earth. We good here?”
I nodded. “Send her in.”
He left the room, and Sandra turned to me. “Do you think he killed her?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
“No.”
“What about Zen?” I asked.
“Zen is smoking half a pack a day, so I don’t think she’d kill anyone.”
“And if she quit smoking?”
“I’d keep her away from sharp objects for a month.”
Chapter Eighteen
Morgan wore the same green dress and black belt as yesterday. Her eyes looked a little glassy, and she kept stroking her braided hair.
“Can we do this quietly?” she asked as she sat.
“We can try,” I said.
“Thank you.”
“I’ll go first,” Sandra said. “Didn’t you wear that outfit yesterday?”
Morgan looked at her dress. “Wow,” she said. “I think you’re right. Maybe I should go change clothes.” She raised her hand up high, leaned her head down, and gave her underarm a sniff. “No, I’m okay for now, but thank you for the reminder.”
“All right,” Sandra said. “Did you kill Elizabeth?”
“I would never deprive another living soul of the ability to draw breath.”
“Can you give me a one word answer?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, you killed her?”
“No. Yes, I can give you a one word answer.”
“Did you kill her?”
“No.”
“That’s better.” Sandra turned to me. “Your witness. Good luck.”
“Hi, Morgan.”
“Greetings, Katherine.”
“I have some questions for you, and I want you to give me simple answers. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“Have you been selling marijuana at the store?”
“Maybe.”
“That should be a yes or no question.”
“Can I say more than one word to answer?”
“Of course.”
