The Witching Hour

by Sara Bourgeois

  Reveal to me that which does deceive.

  I chanted the line three times as I waved the sage smoke over Regina. Nothing happened. I had a dead charlatan “psychic” on my bakery floor. One who I’d threatened the prior morning.

  For the second day in a row, I pulled my phone from my pocket and called Joe. “Don’t tell me someone broke in again,” he said as soon as he picked up. “Are you sure the board didn’t just fall down? We might not have nailed it up well enough.”

  “Joe, Regina is dead. She’s dead and she’s in my shop.”

  “Don’t touch anything. I’ll be right there,” he said and hung up.

  I looked around. I’d touched how many things? I’d even touched Regina when I checked her pulse. I could feel my heart trying to thunder out of my chest as my adrenaline surged. Would that make me look guilty? Had I gotten forensic evidence on her body? I leaned over Regina and gently plucked the lavender sprig I’d thrown on her off her body.

  A shudder made me quake, and suddenly, I no longer wanted to be inside. I stepped outside into the first light of dawn just in time to turn away my first customer of the day. That would be two days in a row, at least, that I had my shop closed. I mean, it sucked that Regina was dead and all, but how was I supposed to pay for my window? Why did the jerk have to go and die in my store? I’m sure that wasn’t going to be good for business either.

  Those were the kind of uncharitable thoughts I would soon have to learn to keep completely to myself. They were the kind of musings that I wouldn’t even tell Joe, and in a few minutes, I was about to be glad that I’d never spoken a word of disdain about Regina dying in my bakery to Joe.

  He’d raced down to meet me and immediately double-checked that Regina was dead. Spoiler alert, she was still dead. I couldn’t read the expression on his face well, but it looked a lot more like disappointment than concern. He didn’t pull me into his arms for a supportive hug that morning.

  There was no outward sign of what had killed her. “We’re going to have to turn your shop into a crime scene,” Joe said after looking over the body. “I’m going to call in Deputy Block to help me process the body and evidence.”

  Deputy Neil Block took a little longer than Joe to get to my shop, but not much. While he was inside collecting evidence, Joe stayed outside with me. He wasn’t there for comfort, though. He was there to question me. Something had shifted between us. His aura was usually warm and sweet around me, but it had become darker and cold. I tried to reason that it was simply because he had to deal with a murder, but I was in denial about the fact that it could have been a shift in the tide of our friendship.

  “Did you see anyone coming or going?” Joe asked.

  “No. There was no one here but her when I arrived. I didn’t even know she was in there at first. I thought the smell was because my refrigerator or cooler had gone out.”

  “Did you move anything or disturb the body in any way?”

  “No,” I said. “I mean, I checked her for a pulse.” I sighed. “I threw a sprig of lavender on her in case it was an illusion spell. Do you think that’s going to make me look like I did it?”

  “Did you do it?” he asked and pulled an evidence bag out of his jacket pocket. “I’m going to need that lavender.”

  For a second, I almost laughed. Then Joe’s eyes met mine and I realized he was completely serious. “Joe. No. Of course not. How would I? Why?” I said and dropped the sprig into the bag.

  “Zoe, it’s going to be better for you in the long run if you just level with me right now,” he said and took a deep breath. “Did you use sorcery to kill Regina?”

  “Joe,” I whispered. The shock of him asking me that was overwhelming. The cold, detached look in his eyes was almost enough to bring me to tears. I had to remind myself that he was doing his job. He had to be detached. “You know I would never do anything like that. It was just lavender. You can’t kill someone with lavender. It’s for protection from evil.”

  “You threatened her yesterday, Zoe. You told her right in front of me and a crowd of people that if she didn’t give the book back, she’d regret it,” Joe said and wrote something down in his notebook. “You also tampered with the crime scene.”

  “I didn’t know that it was a crime scene at the time. I still thought she might be about to attack me.”

  “I don’t know that anyone is going to believe that, Zoe. You had a very public beef with the victim.”

  “I know that Regina stole my book, Joe, but I wouldn’t kill her to get it back. I’m hurt that you would even consider me capable of murder. You know me better than that.”

  “I hope that I know you better than that,” he said with a sigh. “Can you think of anyone else that might have had a reason to kill Regina? Your shop is across the street from hers. Have you seen anyone acting suspicious around her? Has Regina gotten into any other altercations lately?”

  The way he said other stung a little, but I fought back the urge to argue with him. My sadness had begun to morph into annoyance, but I knew better than to let my temper get to me. People were going to judge me based on how I acted right at that moment. If I came unhinged with Joe, they’d start to whisper that I was totally guilty.

  “Anyone who has ever gone into The Seeing Eye could have reason to kill her, Joe. She’s been stealing money from gullible and desperate people for years. Maybe one of her customers finally realized how bad they had been fleeced and snapped.”

  “You can’t go back into the bakery until Neil is done with it. I’ll be in touch if I have any more questions,” he said coldly and then just walked away.

  I stood there with my arms wrapped around my body. My stomach was in knots. I couldn’t believe that there was a dead person in my bakery, and I was hurt by the way Joe had questioned my integrity. By his curt manner when he walked off, I got the sense that he didn’t really believe me either.

  How was I supposed to deal with that?

  Chapter Three

  When Deputy Block was done, I left for my mother’s house. The day was the warmest of the week, and I could feel the humidity hanging in the air already. Summer wasn’t ready to give up the ghost just yet. I’d say that walking outside was akin to walking into an armpit, but that would be a bit crass

  There had been a chill in the air the day before, but that’s how it went this time of year. It was tumultuous as the seasons changed. I needed a trip to the beach to let the saltwater cleanse my spirit, but first I needed to get to my mother. I imagined that she’d have a fit if she showed up at the bakery and witnessed the chaos inside.

  The broken window was bad enough, but if she saw the mess, she’d get arrested. They could tell mom all they wanted that she had to wait until they were done to start cleaning. Deputy Block would have to put her in handcuffs to keep her out.

  She didn’t help me with the baking most days, that was my thing, so mom usually arrived at the bakery a couple of hours after me. I hoped that I could catch her before she left her house for the shop. I didn’t want her to walk in before the funeral home got there. She didn’t need to see Regina laid out by the pastry display. The mess was enough. A dead body right by the pastry display would make her head explode.

  I knocked on the door, and my mother called to come in. I thought it was strange that she didn’t come to the door, but I was happy that she was still there.

  When I walked into her living room, vacuum cleaner parts were strewn all over the floor and my mother was mumbling curses under her breath. There were hoses and brushes in a radius around the vacuum as if it had detonated. Her gray hair was swept up into a tidy bun that sat perfectly centered at the back of her head. Despite the fact that she was cleaning, mother wore a pair of pressed navy slacks and a pink floral blouse. She’d covered her clothing with a white lace apron, but her feet were bare. I almost forgot to remove my shoes and kicked them off before taking another step into the room.

  “Mom, what are you doing?”

  “This dang thing will not
work,” she said. “I wish our magic was good for mechanical stuff, Zoe. Why can’t it work on vacuum cleaners?”

  “Or broken windows for that matter,” I added, though the broken window was the least of my worries at that moment.

  “The news report this morning said that the extra humidity in the air today would cause mold growth. I’m sorry I’m running late, dear, but I cannot leave this house until I’ve vacuumed it from top to bottom. There have to be millions of microscopic spores in this carpet just waiting to unleash their wrath on me,” she said as if she hadn’t heard a word I’d said. “I really need to get rid of the carpet and get hardwood through the whole house. That would be far more sanitary.”

  At that point, I didn’t even know if would do any good to tell her about Regina. She was hyper-focused on getting her house vacuumed, and I was almost certain she wouldn’t pay attention to anything I’d said until she’d vacuumed. I decided it would be far better for me to help her first. We’d deal with the mold and then I’d break the news. She couldn’t go to the bakery and clean until Joe released the scene anyway, so it seemed cruel to tell mom about it when she couldn’t do anything.

  “Let me help you with that, mom,” I said and knelt down next to the wayward sweeper. I surveyed the parts and took a closer look at the inner workings of the sweeper. I wasn’t super mechanically inclined, but I was good with vacuums for some reason.

  A few adjustments and a paperclip removal was all it took. She smiled at me as if the sun rose and set on my behind when I got the thing working, and I was glad that I could help. At least I’d managed to do something positive that day. Her adoration would fade, though, when she found out about the corpse in my store.

  “Thank you,” she said and clapped her hands together excitedly.

  “Where’s the spare? This will go much faster if I help,” I said.

  You’d probably wonder why she didn’t just use the spare when her favorite vacuum broke down, and that would’ve been a reasonable question. Mom was particular about her cleaning in a way that’s hard to put to words. Her spare had been her favorite at one time, but as soon as a new, more powerful model got released, the old one was relegated to “emergency use only”.

  “That would be lovely, dear,” she said. “It’s in the upstairs hall closet. You know which rooms are okay to use it? I wouldn’t want to waste your time. You know I’ll have to do it all again if you use it in the wrong places.”

  “Don’t worry, Mom. I wouldn’t forget. I know it’s important to you.”

  “I could only wish it was as important to you,” she said and started the sweeper without giving me a chance to respond.

  There were only certain rooms where it was acceptable to use the spare vacuum. Rooms like her bedroom and the formal living room were off limits for the vacuum that was no longer “the best.” I personally thought it was ridiculous, but it was better to just go along with her quirks than to fight them. Besides, it was her house. I’d offered to help, so I was going to do just that.

  She didn’t mind if I used the spare in the two unused bedrooms, so I vacuumed around the tidy stacks of plastic totes. Then, I took the hose off and got between the stacks with that narrow tool thingy as best I could. To finish the job off properly, I swapped out the brush tool and sucked up whatever dust had settled on the top tote of each stack.

  Next was the guest bathroom. I flipped the dial to the hard floor setting and make quick work of the small room.

  When I was done running the sweeper in the acceptable rooms, I put the vacuum away and headed downstairs. It was time to tell her about Regina. There could be no more stalling on either of our parts.

  “Hey, thanks for the help, Zoe,” Mom said. “But why aren’t you at the bakery? I thought you could still open even with the window boarded up. Speaking of the window, when will you have the money to fix it? It’s such an eyesore in your beautiful bakery, dear. And think of all of the dust getting in. Ugh. It’s just so awful,” she said and her hands flitted up to her neck nervously.

  “Mom, I’ve got something to tell you,” I said. “You better sit down.” I could already tell that she was going to take the news terribly.

  “What is it?” she asked in that tell me this instant young lady voice that only a mother can pull off.

  Mom didn’t know what I was about to tell her, but she could see that it was something I didn’t want her to know. I didn’t know if it was clairvoyance or she could just read her daughter as easily as a children’s book. That’s how I felt in that moment. It was like being a kid who broke the cookie jar, but I hadn’t done anything wrong. I just didn’t want to upset my mama.

  “Don’t you want to sit?”

  “Spill it, Zoe Magnolia,” she said and put her hands on her hips. “You’re going to give me a heart attack with all this suspense.”

  “Okay. Okay,” I said and put my hands up in surrender. “Regina Hatterson was found dead in my bakery this morning. I can’t go back into my shop until they come get her out.”

  “Oh, my goddess,” my mom yelled, and I swear her face turned three hundred shades of red at once. “You mean there’s a dead body… in your bakery?”

  “Yeah, but they should come get her soon,” I said quietly.

  “Your whole store is going to be contaminated with death, Zoe. And goodness knows what else. So many germs, and oh, gawd, bugs. If she’s there for too long… I… ” Her hands flew up in the air, and I swear she looked like her entire body was about to become unhinged from itself. “You’re never going to be able to sell cupcakes from there again. I think I’m going to be sick,” she said and went from tomato red to a little green around the edges.

  “Mom, sit down,” I said. “You’ve got to calm down. It’s not like anyone is going to want to buy cupcakes from me again after they find out that Regina Hatterson died in my shop. I mean, maybe they will eventually. People really like cupcakes and have very short memories. Her customers aren’t going to be too happy, though.”

  “No one is going to care that Regina is dead, Zoe,” my mother said as she tried to calm her breathing. “They’re going to care that there was a dead body in your bakery, but no one is going to shed any tears over Regina. Maybe with her gone the thrall she had over those poor people will dissipate. I never understood how so many people fell for her bull stick.”

  Well, at least we agreed about that.

  “The deputy is done with collecting evidence,” I said. “Once they come get the body, we can go clean the store. No one will get it as clean as you.” I hoped that flattery would put her in a better mood. If she got into a better mood, then I could get into a better mood. Everyone could be in a better mood.

  “You’re right,” my mom said with an eerie calm. “People know I clean there for you. No one will doubt that it’s safe to eat there again once I’m through.”

  “See, it’s going to be okay.” I was saying it more to myself than her. No matter how clean we got it, my shop would always be the dead body bakery. I could almost hear children in the streets chanting about it.

  “Zoe.”

  “Yeah, mom?”

  “Did you do it?”

  “Mom! Of course I didn’t do it. I can’t believe you’d even ask me that.”

  “Well, you know… I mean… It’s not exactly like you two got along. You’d been at each other’s throats for as long as I can remember. It didn’t help that you put your bakery in the shop right across from her store.”

  “First of all, it was the only vacant store I could afford that had the right zoning and structure for a bakery. Second, I thought her fake psychic shop would fold inside of a month. Three tops. I had no idea she’d keep going until the day she died.”

  “That’s not funny,” Mom said, but she was stifling a chuckle. I just knew it.

  “I know. I’m sorry. I’m being uncharitable. I shouldn’t make jokes at the expense of dead fake psychics who had the audacity to die in my bakery.”

  “You sure you didn�
�t do it?”

  “MOM!”

  “I’m sorry, dear. I won’t ask again. But, I’m your mother, and if you did murder that wretched woman, you can always tell me.”

  I just shook my head and turned around. We put the rest of her cleaning supplies away and headed into the kitchen. Mom made tea while I whipped up a batch of sugar cookies. I could tell she wanted to say something, but I was glad she didn’t.

  Thank to my magic, the cookies only took a few minutes. By the time the tea was done, we had fresh baked goodies to go with it. We sat quietly for a few minutes, but it was obvious mom was busting at the seams.

  “Zoe.”

  “If you’re going to ask me if I’m sure I didn’t do it, please don’t.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll just ask for another cookie. They are really good.”

  “Thanks, mom.”

  “Are you going to clean up the counter?”

  “Of course.”

  First Joe thought I might have killed Regina and then my mom too? Why did everyone close to me think I was capable of murder? I mean, I had a fiery temper sometimes, but I wasn’t a murderer. The worst part was that if my mom and Joe thought it was possible I’d eighty-sixed Regina, what would the rest of Destiny Cove think when they found out she died in my shop?

  Chapter Four

  My phone rang a few minutes later, and it was Joe. I wasn’t quite sure how to feel after our last exchange. He was supposed to be my best friend, but he’d wounded me a lot with his callous accusation. Never in a million years would I have said something like that to him. At least, that’s what I believed. If a dead body turned up in the trunk of his car and there were no other suspects, would I absolutely believe there was no way he’d done it? Did he have the right to be suspicious even though we had a history together? I told myself that everything would be all right and swiped the screen to answer.