A Witchy Boxed Set

by D. S. Butler

  I wrapped my arms around myself and hugged my coat against me tightly as the wind whipped my hair around. It was definitely getting chilly.

  The leaves rustled beneath my feet as I walked over to join Elizabeth.

  “Is that really how people see me?” she asked between sobs.

  I held up my hand, ready to pat her on the shoulder in an attempt to comfort her when I remembered that I couldn’t do that to a ghost.

  I lowered my hand. “Elizabeth, try not to let it upset you. You can’t change anything now. The important thing is to concentrate on finding who killed you so you can move on.”

  She turned to me with red-rimmed eyes. I hadn’t realized ghosts could cry. “I thought they were my f…f… friends.”

  I sighed. No one liked to hear horrible things like that said about themselves, even if they were true.

  “Hey,” a voice behind me said.

  I turned around so quickly, I stumbled. Talk about a guilty reaction.

  It was Joe McGrady.

  “Hi,” I replied, looking around wildly for Elizabeth, who seemed to have vanished.

  “Who were you talking to?” Joe asked.

  Oh, darn, he’d heard me. How on earth was I going to get out of this one? But before I could think up an excuse, Joe’s eyes drifted down to the gravestone beside my feet.

  “Ah, apologies. I just saw someone moving about in the churchyard and thought I’d better investigate, what with the murder and everything.” He nodded at the gravestone. “I’m sorry. Someone close? Your parents?”

  I finally got his meaning. He thought I’d been standing here talking to some dearly departed family member.

  I looked down at the gravestone. Frederick Burton. Elizabeth’s father.

  “Er, no. My parents are both alive and well and living in New York City.”

  Joe frowned and then peered closely, so he could read the name on the gravestone. “Frederick Burton?”

  Of course, Joe was a detective, and he would have made sure he knew the names of Elizabeth’s family. Standing by the grave of Elizabeth’s father, linked me to her, and that wasn’t a good thing. If Joe put two and two together, it might make him even more suspicious of me than he already was.

  I nodded. “Er…Yes, good, old Fred.”

  “You knew him well?”

  Truthfully, I’d only met Fred Burton twice, during visits to Grandma Grant’s when I was a child. Fred had been elderly then, and by the time I moved to Abbott Cove, he’d already passed away.

  I shrugged. “Sure, he was a lovely man.” I tried to recall something about Fred to prove I knew him. “He grew huge summer squash.”

  Joe McGrady raised an eyebrow and looked slightly taken aback. I cringed.

  Summer squash. Really, Harper? Really? That was the best you could come up with?

  My cheeks were burning in mortification as Joe regarded me steadily. I had no excuse for blurting that out, except it was all I could remember about him. Grandma Grant had been very impressed by Fred Burton’s squash, and determined to find out his secret, which had turned our vacation into a very eventful one.

  She’d taken one of the squash to study, and Fred had arrived at her house accusing Grandma Grant of theft. Grandma denied it, of course, and I don’t think my father ever got to the bottom of it.

  After several awkward moments of silence, Joe finally said, “Do you want me to walk you home, Harper? It’s dark, and after everything that’s happened today, I don’t think it’s a good idea to be hanging around in a graveyard.”

  Now, normally being escorted home in the moonlight by a man as handsome as Joe McGrady would have been very appealing, but I was stuck. I had no idea where Elizabeth had disappeared to, and I didn’t want to leave her behind, especially in the state she was in.

  I tried to casually look behind him, only to fail spectacularly.

  He turned his head. “What? Did you see something?”

  I was really fed up of this. For once, I wished I could just be a normal woman.

  Why couldn’t I take advantage of this situation and flirt with the gorgeous Joe McGrady instead of worrying about a traumatized ghost who had just overheard her so-called friends bad-mouthing her?

  Elizabeth Naggington hadn’t been very nice to me when she was alive, and now that she was dead, she was still a thorn in my side.

  I’d had enough. If Elizabeth wanted my help again, she could come and find me.

  So I smiled brightly up at Joe and linked my arm through his. “Thank you, Joe, that would be very nice.”

  Joe nodded with a puzzled frown on his face, and then he escorted me out of the graveyard like a gentleman.

  Chapter Twelve

  I wished I was the type to have a dozen witty observations on hand so I could dazzle Joe with my conversation, but that really wasn’t me.

  I wasn’t used to flirting, so my attempts to get Joe talking were pretty dismal.

  “Any new developments on the murder?”

  Joe shook his head. “Not really, although we have worked out what the murder weapon was.”

  “Chief Wickham said she’d been strangled with a piece of wire?”

  Joe nodded. “Yes, she was strangled all right, but now we’ve identified the type of wire. It was cheese wire. It cut right into her skin.”

  I gulped and shivered. That was not a pretty picture.

  I was glad Elizabeth wasn’t around to hear it.

  “Sorry,” Joe said. “I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t realize you were so close to the deceased.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t really,” I said.

  “But, you knew her father very well?”

  I stared at him and frowned. Temporarily forgetting he’d found me standing beside Fred Burton’s grave.

  For a moment, I wasn’t quite sure what he was getting at, and then I realized.

  He wasn’t escorting me home because he was a gentleman, or because he was interested in me. He was trying to find out how closely I was related to the Naggington family.

  He considered me a suspect.

  That gave my confidence a serious knock and made me feel like a fool. I should have realized. Someone like Joe wouldn’t be interested in a kooky witch like me.

  I slipped my arm from his and nodded at him. “Thank you very much for making sure I got home safely, Deputy McGrady. I hope you catch the killer soon.”

  I shoved my hands in the pockets of my jeans and began to walk off quickly. I wasn’t far from Grandma Grant’s, there was only a short distance along the overgrown garden path to navigate.

  “But you’re not home yet, Harper,” Joe called after me. “If you’ll just wait a minute…”

  “Thank you, but I’m fine,” I said as I stomped up the garden path to Grandma Grant’s house.

  I stepped into Grandma’s kitchen, and the warmth enveloped me. Athena was curled up in a chair, sound asleep. There was a fire burning in the old-fashioned fireplace, and Grandma Grant had a great big pot on the stove. She was stirring the contents with a wooden spoon.

  When she heard me behind her, she jumped and dropped the wooden spoon into the liquid.

  “Darn it, Harper!” She pressed a hand to her chest. “What are you doing sneaking up on me like that?”

  “I wasn’t sneaking. I’ve just come to see you. And what’s that?” I asked suspiciously, pointing at whatever she had simmering on the stove.

  “None of your business,” she said gruffly and tried to fish out the wooden spoon with a large fork.

  I walked over to the stove and peered over her shoulder. I took a sniff. It didn’t exactly smell bad, but I was pretty sure whatever it was she had in the pot wasn’t edible.

  It was bright yellow in color and chopped green leaves floated on the surface together with what looked like bundles of tiny twigs.

  “What is it?” I asked again.

  “Soup.”

  I put my hands on my hips and shook my head. “That is not soup. I take it this is part of what you’v
e been hiding from us then?”

  “Stuff and nonsense,” Grandma Grant said. “It’s soup, a new recipe I’m trying out.”

  I leaned in further and breathed in the thick vapor. “It doesn’t smell like soup.”

  “What is this? You waltz into the kitchen, uninvited I might add, and then you criticize my cooking skills. Really, Harper, I think—”

  Grandma’s voice trailed away as I screamed and slapped a hand across my mouth, pointing at the bubbling liquid.

  Grandma frowned. “For goodness sake, Harper. What’s wrong with you now?”

  Athena, roused from her slumber, gave an irritated meow and then curled back up and closed her eyes again.

  “An eye,” I squeaked. “I just saw an eye in there!”

  I pointed down at a small, spherical object in the center of the pot.

  “Oh, don’t make such a fuss. It’s just eye of newt. And, I’ll have you know, the newt was already dead when I found it. Died of natural causes.”

  I looked at my Grandma incredulously. “No one puts eyes in soup. Not even you! You’re making a potion. So tell me what’s it for?”

  “Can’t a woman have a little bit of privacy?”

  I shook my head. “Not when it’s always Jess and me who have to contain the fallout from the aftermath of your spells and potions.”

  At that moment, Jess burst in through the door, bringing a swirl of leaves in with her.

  She wiped her boots on the mat. “It’s cold out there tonight. Any luck?” Jess asked, looking at me expectantly as she shrugged off her coat.

  I shook my head. “No. We spied on Elizabeth’s husband and her friends from the book club, but we didn’t get any new information, and Elizabeth got really upset because they all seemed to be coping quite well without her.”

  Jess grimaced. “Yes, I can see how that could upset her. Is Elizabeth here now?”

  I shook my head. “She flounced off in the graveyard, and then I got caught by Joe McGrady. He wanted to know who I’d been talking to and insisted on escorting me home.”

  Jess grinned at me. “Joe McGrady, eh? I wouldn’t kick him out of bed.”

  “Jess!” both Grandma and I exclaimed at the same time.

  “What?” Jess said, grinning. “You can’t tell me you hadn’t noticed how hot our new lawman is.”

  I shrugged. “He’s all right, I suppose.”

  “So, did he ask you out?” Jess asked, sidling up to me and nudging me in the ribs.

  “No. He did not. And the only reason he wanted to walk me home was to quiz me because he saw me standing and chatting away right next to Elizabeth’s father’s grave, so now I’m sure he thinks I’m somehow related to Elizabeth’s death.”

  Jess’s enthusiasm fizzled away. “Oh, that is a shame. We don’t get many hot guys here in the Cove.”

  “What are you talking about?” Grandma Grant protested as she continued to stir her gross potion on the stove. “The Cove has plenty of good-looking men. What about Patrick Carter, Seth Greenaway, and, of course, Brian McKellen?”

  Both Jess and I turned to Grandma Grant in horror, and Jess said, “Grandma, all of those men are over fifty. I’m sure they were quite the catch in their day, but I think Harper and I would prefer a slightly younger man.”

  Grandma said, “Well, if you’re going to be picky…” She shrugged and turned back to her potion.

  I sat down at the kitchen table and sighed. “I am a bit worried about Elizabeth, actually. She overheard some nasty things her friends at the book club were saying about her. It can’t have been pleasant.”

  Jess sat down opposite me and said. “I’m sure it wasn’t, but Elizabeth did say plenty of nasty things herself while she was alive.”

  Elizabeth chose that moment to float through the wall. “Oh,” she said huffily. “So you’re all talking about me behind my back as well.”

  I groaned. “Elizabeth, I was worried about you. You shouldn’t flounce off like that. We are supposed to be working as a team, trying to work out who killed you.”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “I saw you talking to that young police officer. He seemed rather keen on you, so I thought I’d give you a bit of privacy.”

  Elizabeth had a teasing grin on her face. I couldn’t keep up with the change in her moods. It made me dizzy.

  I shook my head. “Well, if you’d stuck around, you would have seen he wasn’t keen on me as you put it. He was trying to find out about my relationship with your father.”

  “My father?” Elizabeth stared at me, puzzled.

  “Yes, he wanted to know how well I knew him because he found me standing next to your father’s grave, talking to you. But of course he couldn’t see you, so he assumed… Well, I don’t know what he assumed actually. But I do know he thought I was behaving extremely strangely.”

  “Nothing new there,” Grandma Grant muttered.

  I ignored her.

  “Ah,” Elizabeth said, nodding. “Yes, I can see how that would have been rather awkward.”

  Awkward wasn’t the word.

  Over the course of the day, I had managed to embarrass myself in front of the chief of police, his new deputy and goodness knows how many other people who had spotted me spying on Robert Naggington.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Elizabeth was moping. “I don’t think we are ever going to find my killer. I’ll just have to stay around here forever with only you to talk to.”

  Elizabeth looked distraught.

  I wasn’t particularly enamored with that idea either. I didn’t say that, though. I’m not completely heartless.

  “We will find out who did this, Elizabeth. It’s just going to take a little time.”

  “Well, we haven’t made much progress so far.”

  “Sure, we have,” I said, trying to sound encouraging. “We have found out how you were killed.”

  “Strangled,” Elizabeth said mournfully as she rubbed her throat.

  I nodded. “Yes, and I found out from Joe that the killer used cheese wire.”

  “Cheese wire! Oh, my word!”

  Elizabeth looked like she might be sick. I shuffled over to the side. I was pretty sure ghosts couldn’t actually throw up, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

  “Is that significant? It could be a clue? Do you know anybody who has cheese wire?”

  Elizabeth thought for a moment and then nodded. She turned to me with a cunning smile. “I know someone who used cheese wire.”

  I nodded eagerly. “Who?”

  Elizabeth nodded to herself. “Yes, it is all making sense now. All the pieces of the puzzle are falling into place.”

  I waited with bated breath for her to reveal the killer.

  “What is it?” Jess said beside me.

  “The cheese wire has triggered a memory for Elizabeth. I think she knows who did it.”

  Jess’s eyes widened, and she reached out to hold my hand. “Who?”

  That was a very good question.

  “Well, Elizabeth, are you going to tell us?” I asked.

  “It’s quite obvious. You can’t see it because you’re too close to him. It’s Archie.”

  My excitement evaporated, and I slumped back into the chair before turning to Jess, “She doesn’t really remember. She’s still saying she suspects Archie.”

  “I don’t know why you won’t even consider it,” Elizabeth said haughtily. “It makes perfect sense. Archie was furious at me for criticizing the diner and its food, and he has an abundant supply of cheese wire. I know for a fact he held the cheese and wine evening for the Women’s Institute in the church hall last month, and he definitely had cheese wire to cut the cheese up into little pieces.”

  I sighed. Anyone who knew Archie would know he was completely incapable of murder. Even as riled up as he’d been by Elizabeth’s rudeness, he would never have harmed her.

  I shook my head. “Fine. It’s definitely not Archie, but if it makes you feel better, I’ll talk to him at work tomorrow.”

&n
bsp; Elizabeth nodded. “Good. I’m glad to see you’re finally taking me seriously.”

  I got to my feet and stretched.

  “Well, it’s been a busy day. I’m going to go home and go to bed. Elizabeth, you’re welcome to spend the night at our house.”

  “Do ghosts actually sleep?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve no idea. I guess you’ll find out this evening.”

  It turned out that ghosts could sleep. Elizabeth hovered horizontally over the couch all night, and she only woke up when I walked past her to get breakfast.

  She made a scandalized noise as I poured some cereal into a bowl.

  “You shouldn’t eat that,” she said pointing to the cereal packet. “It’s far too processed.”

  I ignored her and added extra cereal to the bowl.

  “So, what are we going to do today?” Elizabeth said, still frowning at the cereal.

  “I’m going to work. Afterward, we’ll make a plan and decide what we’re going to do next.”

  Elizabeth looked disappointed. “Well, can I come to the diner with you? We might be able to get some clues if Archie did it.”

  I shot Elizabeth a warning look. “You can come with me, but only if you promise to behave and keep quiet.”

  Elizabeth pressed a hand to her chest. “Me? When do I ever behave anything less than impeccably?”

  Before I could make a smart reply, Jess walked into the kitchen yawning. “Pour me a bowl, would you?”

  “Good grief,” Elizabeth said.

  I poured Jess a large bowl of cereal and pushed it across the counter toward her so she could top it up with a generous serving of milk. “Elizabeth doesn’t approve of our breakfast choice.”

  Jess shrugged and crunched through a large mouthful of cereal.

  Jess wasn’t a keen conversationalist when she’d just woken up. She wasn’t really a morning person. Neither was I, to be honest. I preferred to wait until after I’d had my first cup of coffee before interacting with anyone, but Elizabeth hadn’t really given me much choice this morning.

  I walked the ten-minute journey to work with Elizabeth hovering beside me, chatting away and making snappy comments about the people we passed.