Batter and Spells (Sweetland Witch Women Sleuths) (A Cozy Mystery Book)

by Zoe Arden

  "Well, Tazzie sort of stopped and looked around the room. When she saw me, she looked surprised. She asked me for a knife."

  "She actually asked you for a knife?" Colt said, looking mystified.

  Wilma nodded.

  "What did you do?" asked Sheriff Knoxx.

  "I gave it to her. I didn't know... I mean, I had no idea..." Wilma seemed to shrink as everyone stared at her.

  Lincoln produced the knife. "Is this the knife you gave her?"

  Wilma nodded.

  Kayla jumped out of nowhere. "Liar!" she screamed.

  Wilma's face went white but she stood her ground. "I'm not lying," she said.

  Kayla grabbed a cupcake off the table and threw it at Wilma. Wilma ducked just in time. The cupcake missed and hit Sheriff Knoxx instead. He wiped it off with a frown. Grayson stepped between them.

  "Sheriff Maxwell," he said, "Tazzie would never kill anyone. You can't really believe that."

  "I don't know what to believe just yet," Sheriff Knoxx said. "Until we question Tazzie, we have nothing else to go on except witness statements."

  "Well that witness is a bad one," Kayla said, pointing a frosting-laced finger in Wilma's direction. "My mother is no murderer. For witch's sake, she was attacked herself just a few nights ago. Whoever killed Thaddeus is probably the same guy who attacked my mom."

  "Kayla has a good point," I said. My dad had sidled up to the rest of us, Sadie still on his arm. He shot me a look that told me to keep out of it.

  "Grayson," Lincoln said, trying to reason with him. "No one is under arrest here; we're just trying to get the facts. Do you know where Tazzie Singer is right now?"

  "No," Grayson said, rolling back his shoulders. I admired the way he was standing up for Tazzie even though he'd fought in the mayoral race against her. Kayla was lucky to have him as her boyfriend.

  "Fine," Lincoln said through clenched teeth. Tempers were getting heated. "Maybe I'll just bring you and Kayla into the station and we can talk about this there. It might jog your memory."

  "You leave Kayla out of this!" Grayson yelled, furious. He raised his fists at Lincoln.

  Sheriff Knoxx tried to stop them but was having little success. "Knock it off!" he yelled. "Both of you!"

  Grayson reached for Lincoln. Lincoln reached for Grayson.

  A woman's voice cut through the air. "Stop it!" Everyone turned to see Tazzie Singer standing there, her face flushed. "I've done nothing wrong. I'll answer your questions. Just stop fighting."

  Grayson and Lincoln looked shamefacedly at each other and muttered apologies.

  "Remember," Lincoln said. "No one's under arrest here."

  "Not yet," Wilma said. She was lucky Kayla didn't hex her right then and there.

  * * *

  0 8

  * * *

  Tazzie was questioned for two hours but ultimately released.

  Yes, she said, she'd asked Wilma for a knife, but that had been to cut a cake. Not stab anyone. The sheriffs wanted to know what the fight between her and Thaddeus had been about. She told them it was just the usual stuff between candidates, nothing special.

  Her answers were vague but reasonable. She'd had no blood on her, no fingerprints on the knife, and despite the circumstantial evidence, there was nothing concrete. Until they had solid proof of her guilt, there was little they could do to hold her.

  I leaned against the counter at Mystic Cupcake and yawned. Felicity and Lucy had both texted me this morning, Lucy at four a.m., Felicity at five, making it impossible for me to sleep. They wanted to know if Colt had told me anything they didn't already know.

  The answer was no. Colt had told me nothing. He was trying to keep me as uninvolved as possible. He knew I had a tendency to get sucked into these investigations and didn't want me getting hurt. The last time I'd investigated a murder, things had gotten a little too close for comfort.

  "Where is everybody?" I asked Eleanor and Trixie. It was eleven a.m. We'd been open since nine, and I could count the number of customers we'd had on one hand.

  "They'll be here," Eleanor said uncertainly. Her blond hair was pulled back in a tight bun. The long, dark purple skirt she wore swished as she absentmindedly kicked her foot over the ground. "This is just a lull. It happens to all businesses once in a while."

  "That's right," Trixie said. In contrast to Eleanor, her hair was tied up in a high, cheerleader-style ponytail. The yellow bow in it matched the yellow tights she wore now. Too bad none of it matched her neon green shirt.

  "Sooner or later," Trixie continued, "people will realize Mystic is the better bakery and come back to us. Right now, Sweets n' Treats is too new. That's why it's a draw. People get excited about new things."

  My dad had stayed home today, but I knew he'd agree with Trixie if he were here. The front door jingled and we all looked eagerly in its direction. Snowball, Tootsie, and Rocky sauntered in. Tootsie licked her paw and wiped her nose.

  "Hi," they all said in unison.

  Trixie, Eleanor, and I looked at each other. It wasn't often that our familiars all came into the bakery together. I wondered if Snowball had decided to take another shot at trying to convince me to create a tuna-flavored sugar cookie, and had brought the other two for backup.

  We had just managed to get rid of Trixie's blood-infused pastries—though Trixie threatened to bring them back on an almost daily basis—and I wasn't about to broach the subject of fish-flavored ones with my aunts. Not yet. I was starting to think that pastries for familiars might not be such a bad idea, though.

  "What's going on?" I asked Snowy and the others. Rocky barked lightly and looked at Tootsie, who nudged Snowball. Apparently, Snowball had been elected to tell us whatever was on their minds.

  "Snowball, Tootsie, and Rocky have news," Snowy said. Her white fur fluffed out around her face, making her look like she was surrounded by a cloud of powdered sugar.

  She curled her tail around her feet before continuing. "The line at Sweets n' Treats is long. People are waiting around the corner. Snowball does not like that they are not here, neither do Tootsie and Rocky. We felt it our job to warn you."

  She sat back on her haunches with a satisfied nod.

  "The line is around the corner?" I asked.

  They all nodded. I looked at Eleanor and Trixie. They were thinking the same thing I was, but only Trixie had guts enough to voice it. "Maybe we had better take a look for ourselves. See what all the fuss is about."

  "Tuna for Snowball?" Snowy asked.

  "Later, okay? Snowy did good."

  "Tootsie also gets tuna," said Snowball. "Rocky likes bones."

  Satisfied that they would all be rewarded later, they left the shop to go exploring or whatever familiars do during the day. We closed up Mystic, posting a sign out front that said we'd be back in one hour, just in case anyone actually showed up to buy something.

  Sweets n' Treats was across town but it didn't take long to get there. Sweetland Cove just wasn't that big. Ten minutes later, Trixie, Eleanor, and I stood outside the new bakery with our arms folded. Snowball hadn't been exaggerating. The line was wrapped around the corner.

  I could hardly believe this place used to be The Alchemic Stone. I'd been here countless times to see Polly and Anastasia Peacock, but I would never have recognized it now. The old brick building was essentially the same as I remembered, except that there was a large display window where none had been before.

  Alchemic Stone had always been shrouded in secrecy. The items it sold could not be permitted to fall into human hands, and so the building's outside had been made to look cold and uninviting. Unless you'd known it was there, you would have walked right past it.

  The window in place now was incredibly eye-catching, the exact opposite of the old shop. It was draped in silky chiffon ribbons of various shades of cream and pink. Glitter was used without moderation. Stacks of cakes, cupcakes, and cookies sat boldly on display for people to see. The main display cake was a four-foot tall witch, crafted out of modelin
g chocolate. The base was a two-layered sheet cake shaped like a moat.

  I hated to admit it, but it was good.

  "I'm not waiting in that line," Trixie said, proudly tilting her head back and tightening her arms around her chest.

  "Well..." Eleanor said, her lips turning down. I knew she didn't want to wait either, but she was too polite to just cut in line. "Well..." she said again.

  A woman's face suddenly appeared in the window. It beamed at us, beckoning us forward. When we didn't move, Wilma Trueheart stepped outside.

  "Hello," she called happily. "Don't just stand there, come on in."

  Eleanor looked toward the back of the line.

  "You don't have to wait to get in," Wilma said, grabbing Eleanor by the shoulders and pushing her toward the door. "You're not just customers, after all, you're in the business. Consider this a conference."

  The door jingled a merry little tune when we stepped inside and kept on jingling until the door shut. The inside of the bakery was even nicer than the display window. The same silky, glittery chiffon had been carried throughout the store. It was draped from the ceilings, tacked to the walls. It felt like you'd just stepped into a cloud. The display cases actually shined. Everything was so bright. So clean. So... inviting.

  "Wow," murmured Eleanor.

  "Yeah," I agreed.

  A loud voice rose above the others in the store. "This is the best chocolate hazelnut cupcake I've have ever had!" The woman whose voice it belonged to turned around, her mouth full of rich creamy frosting, and froze.

  "Hello, Lottie," Eleanor said.

  Lottie Mudget gulped. "Hello," she replied. She smiled, revealing chocolate-coated teeth. "Um... I was just being neighborly. You have to support your local businesses, you know."

  So much for loyalty, I thought, though I didn't entirely blame her. It was hard to resist the allure of something new. Especially when it came coated in sugar. She hurried toward the door.

  "Oh, Ms. Mudget!" Wilma called, chasing after her. "You almost forgot your boxes!" Lottie's cheeks turned a deep pink as Wilma handed her three big pastry boxes. Apparently, Lottie had bought enough cupcakes and cookies to last her until Halloween. Then again, at the rate she was going, they probably wouldn't last until the end of this week.

  "Here," Wilma said, handing me, Trixie, and Eleanor a cupcake each. "Try one. On the house. They're strawberry shortcake beach cakes."

  "Beach cakes?" I asked. "That's not an extract, is it?"

  She nodded enthusiastically. "I wanted to see if I could come up with something that would make people feel like they were at the beach, even if they were just in their own home."

  I bit down and the initial sense of ocean water washed over me immediately. I tasted salt water and taffy. It felt like I was lying on the sand with the sun beaming down on me. I opened my eyes. "That's amazing," I said.

  "Thank you. It took me months to perfect." I could tell that Trixie and Eleanor were equally impressed. They wandered slowly around the shop, absorbing the different styles of cake and her intricate ways of decorating.

  I finished my cupcake and went to join them, but Wilma stopped me. "You haven't spoken to Tazzie Singer today, have you?"

  "No, why?"

  "I just wanted to make sure that we're on the same page, you and I."

  "What page is that?" I asked uncertainly. There was something about the look in her eyes that made me wary.

  "I told the police the truth about that knife the other day. I don't need you or your friends to go making trouble for me when I've just gotten settled here. It's not easy being the new girl in town."

  "It's not like I'm going to spread rumors about you or something, if that's what you mean."

  "Are you sure? Because just today someone told me that there was one going around that I had a grudge against Tazzie when I'd never even met her until the party."

  "If someone said that, it wasn't me."

  Had I really thought that Wilma was likeable? Right now, she was about the most unlikable person I'd ever met.

  "I'm sorry," she said, suddenly bright and chipper again. "Hold on, let me get you something." She went behind her counter and opened a cabinet. A moment later, she returned with a s'mores cupcake, with toasted marshmallow frosting. "Friends?" she asked.

  I didn't want to make waves with someone so new and obviously popular. "Sure," I said, taking the cupcake. I bit into it. My teeth crunched against something hard in the center of the cake. It was so hard, it actually hurt my tooth.

  "Ow," I said. "What the heck is that?"

  "What's wrong?" Wilma asked, frowning.

  I looked closely at the cupcake. Something dark and pointy was sticking out of the center of it. I pulled on it and out popped a rusty-looking nail. I looked at Wilma, my mouth gaping.

  "Oh, dear," she said. "How did that happen? Thank the witches you got that and not a customer, I hate to think what might have happened."

  She took the nail from me and threw it in the trash. "I do hope we can keep this between us," she said so softly I had to strain to hear her. "I'd hate for people to get the wrong ideas about me." Her eyes blackened. Her lips tightened. "After all, us bakery witches need to stick together, or bad things might happen. Don't you agree?" She winked darkly at me and returned to her cupcakes.

  I blinked, incredulous. Either I was crazy... or Wilma had just threatened me.

  * * *

  0 9

  * * *

  Eleanor needed to talk to Sheriff Knoxx about the DJ they'd hired for their wedding. Bill Vargas Sr. was an operations manager by day, a DJ by night. Natalie Vargas, his wife, was one of Mystic's best customers, so when she'd suggested Bill, Eleanor had jumped on the idea.

  Today, though, Eleanor had finally gotten to see a sampling of Bill's work when he came by Mystic for a half-dozen muffins. There had been no one else in the store. He'd put a record on his turntable, turned his hat around backward, and started bopping to bad eighties music like he was in a John Hughes’ film.

  Eleanor had been horrified. I think we all had. Even my dad had shot Eleanor a look saying, "Are you sure about this guy?"

  Bill Vargas was not what one pictured when thinking of a wedding DJ. He seemed to have no concept of the type of music people liked. This was a mess that needed fixing fast. She ripped her apron off the second he was gone and told Trixie and me that she was going down to the sheriff's station.

  "I'll go with," I said, thinking Colt might be there. His father's sentencing was days away now. I'd had little opportunity to see him as he made some last-minute efforts to get his father a reduced sentence. He still harbored hopes that Russell might end up on parole instead of someplace like Swords and Bones. I didn't want to burst his dreams, but that seemed highly unlikely to me.

  I was hoping for a chance to run something by him, like what had happened with Wilma. I'd told Trixie—Eleanor was too high strung for me to tell her anything that might make it worse—and she had said it was probably an accident.

  "One time, I baked a rubber band into a chocolate java cookie. Your Aunt Eleanor almost choked on it. I didn't hear the end of it for months."

  I still didn't see how a rusty nail could accidentally end up in a cupcake unless someone placed it there. Maybe Wilma had a whole stack of them hidden for her enemies. I needed to hear Colt's thoughts on the whole thing. I just hoped he wasn't still irked at me.

  I'd made the unfortunate mistake, the other day, of making a bad joke. "If your dad ends up at Swords and Bones, he'll probably be the only one there who's actually used both swords and bones in his day to day life. I bet there's a special cell somewhere for vampires just like him."

  I don't know what I'd been thinking, saying that. I guess I was tired and trying to lighten the mood. I just wanted to see Colt smile; it was turning into such a rarity these days. Instead, he'd looked at me like I was nuts and I'd quickly apologized.

  Aunt Eleanor mumbled to herself on the way to the station. Colt wasn't there when we arriv
ed. He was in Mistmoor helping Lincoln. It was rare for Mistmoor and Sweetland to help each other out like this, and I hoped it might lead to better terms between our two towns.

  The centuries-old feud between Sweetland Cove and Mistmoor Point ran back to my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, Sara Sweetland, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death. Her husband, Patrick Mistmoor, had been blamed, a curse had been placed, and my family had battled to keep the curse out of our lives ever since.

  It was kind of a long story that I was still piecing together myself. All I knew was that trouble seemed to follow me and my family wherever we went, and Sweetland and Mistmoor hadn't been quite the same since. Of course, that was twelve hundred years ago. You'd have thought our two towns might've lightened up since then.

  The sheriffs' departments were the only locations on the island that seemed immune to the feud. Sheriff Knoxx and Lincoln didn't care about those sorts of things. They thought the whole feud was silly. Lincoln's girlfriend, Felicity, agreed. When Mayor Singer had been alive and running things, he'd been part of the small team that had decided to try and bridge the gap between us. Too bad he was gone. He would have loved to have seen Sheriff Knoxx and Lincoln working so closely together, not to mention Colt, who was the only member of COMHA to take up residence on Heavenly Haven.

  Eleanor stamped into the sheriff's office like she owned the place. Considering she was about to marry the sheriff, she kind of did.

  "Zane, I have terrible news," she said, quite melodramatically. Eleanor wasn't prone to theatrics. The wedding brought out another side in her, though. Hopefully, it would go away after the wedding was over.

  Sheriff Knoxx looked up from his desk, alarmed. "What is it?" he asked, running over to her.

  She gripped his arms tightly, her eyes misting over.

  "The DJ I hired for our wedding... he's terrible!"

  Sheriff Knoxx blinked at her a moment then let her go. "Is that all? You scared me. I thought someone was hurt."