Witches' Cat: Witch Cozy Mystery (Witches and Wine Book 7)

by Morgana Best

  She meowed and ran out of the room by way of response.

  I simply shrugged. “She’s very upset,” I said, somewhat unnecessarily.

  At that point, Aunt Agnes walked back into the room. “That was a difficult conversation. Jezabeth hasn’t changed.”

  “She must have been terribly upset about her mother,” I said.

  “She hasn’t seen her in many years,” Aunt Agnes said. “She seemed more interested in coming here to get her mother’s possessions. She wanted to know if we knew who Gorgona’s lawyer was.”

  “Lawyer?” I repeated.

  “For the will,” Agnes said. “I assume she wants to get her hands on her mother’s estate as soon as possible.”

  I was going to ask something, but Aunt Agnes added, “And you won’t believe this!”

  We waited expectantly. After pausing a moment or two for dramatic effect, she pushed on. “Gorgona has a house in town.”

  “What? In Lighthouse Bay?” I said. “I thought she lived at Nelson Bay.”

  Aunt Agnes nodded slowly. “That’s what we thought too. Her husband, Ethelbert, lived at Nelson Bay, but Gorgona apparently had a holiday house here.” Aunt Agnes made air quotes. “From what Jezabeth said, Gorgona lived here all the time.”

  “She lived in Lighthouse Bay all the time, and you didn’t know?” I said in shock. “I mean, I know it has a population of only around forty thousand people, but surely you would have known if your own cousin was in town.”

  “Our own cousin was staying in one of our cottages, and we didn’t even know,” Aunt Agnes pointed out.

  “Did Jezabeth offer any clues as to what happened to her mother?” I asked.

  Aunt Agnes shook her head and then said, “No, and we can’t mention The Other to Jezabeth. We don’t know how much she knows about them, if anything.”

  Aunt Maude firmly agreed. “Yes, that subject can’t come up while Jezabeth is here.”

  “Where was Jezabeth when you called her?” I asked Aunt Agnes.

  “Sydney, and she’s taking the first flight to Lighthouse Bay. She’ll be here this afternoon.”

  Chapter 4

  We all hurried to the Game of Thrones cottage to find any evidence of poison. Aunt Agnes had insisted we all wear gloves and had also insisted Dorothy leave Cary inside the manor.

  When we reached the cottage, I stood in the doorway and scratched my head. “What exactly are we looking for? I’m sure the murderer didn’t leave a bottle with a skull and crossbones on it sitting on a table.”

  “It might not have been poison,” Aunt Dorothy said.

  For once, Aunt Agnes agreed with her. “Let’s keep an open mind. Still, we have to assume it was poison unless Gorgona was shot with a tiny poisonous dart, but then again, we didn’t see any darts sticking out of her. There were no stab or bullet wounds, and she was complaining of violent stomach pains. That, to me, suggests it was poison. Valkyrie, fetch a sample of her witches’ brew so we can have it tested for poison.”

  I crossed to the fridge and looked inside. “There’s no wine in here.”

  “Of course not, Valkyrie. She wasn’t going to leave witches’ brew out the open, as then we would’ve known she was a vampire if we happened to look in her fridge. No, it will be disguised as something else.”

  I pulled out a large bottle labelled as tomato juice, took off the lid, and sniffed it. “Yes, this is witches’ brew,” I said.

  “Okay, we’ll take it and test it,” Aunt Agnes said. “Let’s keep looking through Gorgona’s stuff. We don’t have much time.”

  “Actually, if the police rule it natural causes, then we will have plenty of time,” Maude pointed out.

  Aunt Agnes strongly disagreed. “No, if the police do happen to discover it was poison, then they’re going to be back here quick smart, and it won’t do if we are all in her cottage. They will immediately suspect us.”

  Aunt Maude rubbed her forehead. “Oh dear. I do believe you’re right. All right then, let’s hurry.”

  I ran into the bedroom and opened any drawers I could see, looking for bottles of pills or anything of the like. I found nothing. I heard Aunt Agnes’s strident tones from the other room. “Don’t touch anything without your gloves. It might’ve been a poison that killed with contact.”

  I at once took a step away from the furniture. “Bathroom!” I exclaimed. I hurried into the bathroom but soon emerged rather disappointed. “She doesn’t have any moisturiser or cleanser or anything like that. Do you think the poisoner took them?”

  “Of course, she didn’t have any moisturiser,” Aunt Agnes said. “Did you see her face?”

  Aunt Dorothy tut-tutted. “Oh Agnes, it’s not nice to speak ill of the dead.”

  Aunt Agnes simply shrugged and continued looking through the contents of the kitchen drawers.

  I went back to the bathroom and bagged the Mugwort Manor-supplied hand wash.

  Aunt Agnes nodded her approval. “Someone could easily have put something into that. Remember, sisters and Valkyrie, it might not be something she ingested, so don’t discount anything.”

  I looked under the sofa and then stood up. “We’ll have to look into Jezabeth’s alibi,” I told them. “She says she’s coming from Sydney, but maybe she’s been in town all the time.” I pointed out the window. “Those sand dunes are quite close to this cottage, and there’s a lot of cover there. See all those bracken ferns and spinifex? She could easily have slipped in here and poisoned something.”

  Something else occurred to me. “You know, somebody could have poisoned Gorgona, and then after she left to speak to us, taken the poisoned substance away. We would never have seen them.”

  “Yes, I thought of that,” Aunt Agnes said. “That’s entirely possible. Still, I don’t think Jezabeth did it.”

  “But we haven’t seen her in a very long time,” Aunt Maude said. “And she was a thoroughly nasty person when we last knew her.”

  “There are plenty of thoroughly nasty people who don’t commit murder,” Aunt Agnes countered.

  Aunt Maude shrugged. “That is true, I’ll grant you that, but my point is that if Jezabeth was a thoroughly nasty person a very long time ago, then it’s possible her nastiness could have escalated to murder.” She waved one finger at Aunt Agnes.

  Aunt Agnes did not respond, and we spent the next five minutes searching the remainder of the cottage. As soon as we finished, we took our haul to the aunts’ altar room at the top of the stairs and down the long, dark corridor in the manor.

  The sound of the doorbell reverberated through the house. “Just in time,” Aunt Agnes said. “Quick, all of you out the door.”

  She ushered us out of the altar room and locked the door behind us. We swept down the stairs and waited while Aunt Agnes opened the front door. A woman, I assume, Jezabeth, was standing on the front steps, her expression impassive.

  Jezabeth wasn’t what I expected. I wasn’t sure exactly what I had expected, but it was certainly not that. She was cold, and while not exactly hostile, she certainly wasn’t friendly or pleasant either.

  The aunts invited her into the living room and indicated she should sit down. “Would you like tea or coffee?” Aunt Agnes asked her.

  “Witches’ brew.” Her tone was curt.

  While Aunt Maude and Aunt Agnes made inconsequential small talk with Jezabeth, I took the opportunity to study her. She was about my height and was quite slender. Her white-blonde hair was worn very short. Her complexion was pale, as were her blue eyes. The expression on her face was pinched. I wondered if it was it always there or whether it was because of her mother’s death.

  She sipped the potion. “This is quite good witches’ brew. You live very close to the Ichor Estate, don’t you? Didn’t the old guy die overseas?”

  Aunt Agnes flushed red. For a minute, I thought she would say Henry Ichor was murdered, but she simply said, “Yes.”

  “I’m awfully sorry about your mother,” I said to change the subject.

  She
shot me a haughty expression. “We didn’t have a good relationship. I see you have a dog. Do you have a cat too?”

  The living room doors swung open, and Aunt Dorothy walked in along with Detective Oakes.

  I looked up, surprised. “I didn’t hear you arrive, Detective Oakes.”

  He simply nodded to me and looked at Jezabeth. “I’m Detective Oakes,” he said.

  She simply said, “Okay.”

  Aunt Agnes hurried to introduce them. “Detective Oakes, this is Jezabeth, Euphemia Jones’s daughter.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said automatically. “I was here to ask the Jasper sisters for the next of kin’s contact details, so it’s propitious I found you here. I thought I’d let you know that there are no suspicious circumstances. Your mother died of natural causes. This isn’t a murder investigation—for once,” he added. With that, he offered us all a half smile and turned to leave. Aunt Agnes showed him to the door.

  When Aunt Agnes came back to the living room, she said, “You probably all realise by now I have filled in Jezabeth about the matter of her mother’s glamour, disguising herself as Euphemia Jones.”

  “Obviously, she did that to land her last husband, Ethelbert,” Jezabeth said in clipped tones. “She had changed her legal name to Euphemia Jones. Still, she was a very strange woman. I couldn’t figure out why she did many things. Have you made any progress locating her lawyer?”

  “Not yet,” Aunt Agnes said.

  “I need to stay in one of your cottages. Do you have any vacancies?”

  “No,” Dorothy said, just as Agnes said, “Yes. Your mother’s things are still in the Game of Thrones cottage.”

  “I can’t rent that one,” Jezabeth said, “not with her dying in there.”

  Dorothy shook her head. “No, she didn’t die in the cottage. She died in our tomato patch, on our best tomatoes.”

  Jezabeth appeared unmoved. “I see. Well then, what cottage can I have?”

  “You could have The Witcher cottage,” I said. “The decorating isn’t finished, but it’s the only other possibility.” There was also the Jungle Cottage, but it was too nice and too big for the likes of her.

  She turned her attention to me. It was all I could do not to shudder. She reminded me of some sort of ghoul. “Did you say The Witches’ cottage?”

  I shook my head. “No, no. All our cottages are themed. The newest cottage we decorated is The Witcher cottage. You know, The Witcher, on Netflix?” I sang the chorus of the song.

  The aunts and Jezabeth all looked at me as though I had taken leave of my senses. The aunts also plugged their ears. “The song grows on you. Oh well, never mind,” I said with a shrug.

  “Then I’ll grab some paperwork for insurance purposes,” Aunt Agnes said. “No charge for the accommodation, of course, because you’re our relative.”

  Jezabeth stood up. “Thanks.” She looked at me. “Will you take my suitcase to the cottage?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “And please have dinner with us tonight,” Agnes said.

  Jezabeth simply nodded, and I followed her out to her hire car. She didn’t say a word to me all the way to the cottage. Clearly, she wasn’t one for conversation. I opened the door and handed her the key. She looked at the painting of The Witcher riding his horse across one wall. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t comment. “I’ll call for you again when I need something,” she said.

  With that, I was dismissed. I walked as fast as I could without running to the manor and let myself in through the back door. The aunts weren’t in the kitchen, so I hurried into the living room where they were all still sitting. “Has Jezabeth settled in?” Aunt Agnes asked me.

  “Yes, she seems fine. At least, she’s not complaining. She asked me again if we had any pets other than Cary. If you don’t like her, why did you let her have the cottage for free?”

  “That’s what I just said,” Maude said crossly, stroking Cary.

  “You know the old saying about keeping your enemies close,” Aunt Agnes said. “For all we know, she killed her mother. And on the other hand, if she didn’t, we only have her word that she didn’t get along with her mother, so maybe they were working together for The Other. We’ll have to be quite vigilant, because for all we know, we have an enemy here.”

  “And possibly a murderer,” I said.

  Aunt Maude sighed. “Once more, we have to turn our minds to a murder investigation.”

  “I wouldn’t even know where to start this time, to be honest,” I said.

  Aunt Agnes tapped her chin. “I’ve been giving this quite a bit of thought. We need to discover whether Gorgona had any enemies.”

  “She had such an unpleasant personality that she would have had lots of enemies,” I pointed out.

  “Yes, but surely they all didn’t want to kill her,” Agnes said.

  “They probably did,” Dorothy muttered.

  “We need to find out about her will. Once we know who her lawyer is, we can find out if there are beneficiaries other than Jezabeth and add them to our list of suspects.”

  “We don’t have a list of suspects,” I said. “The only suspect we have is Jezabeth.”

  Breena walked out from behind the curtains. She was in human form and was clothed for once. She walked over and sat on the high-backed velvet chair. She didn’t sit like a person—she sat like a cat would sit.

  “Has anyone else noticed that Breena has been acting strangely since Euphemia, I mean Gorgona, was murdered?” Before anyone could respond, I added, “Are you sure it was murder? What if she simply did die of natural causes?”

  The aunts exchanged glances. “Vampires don’t die of natural causes,” Aunt Agnes said. “I’m sure we’ve told you that many a time, Valkyrie.”

  “No, you haven’t,” I began, but Aunt Agnes interrupted me.

  “She was murdered, I can assure you of that. This means we have to investigate her murder to ascertain whether an agent of The Other was involved or whether it was simply a mundane enemy. We will have to make a list of her enemies, and we will have to find out the murder weapon, despite the fact we currently assume it was poison.”

  “But how are we going to do that?” I said. “What if the substances we took from the cottage test as non-poisonous? The police said Gorgona died from natural causes, so there won’t be a toxicology report.”

  “I’ve just had a brainwave! Many poisons show up in the hair,” Aunt Agnes said, clearly pleased with herself. “We’ll have to go to the funeral and take some of Gorgona’s hair.”

  “What if it isn’t an open casket?” I said.

  Aunt Agnes tapped her head. “Yes, well, that will make things somewhat more difficult. Stop that, Breena!”

  I looked over at Breena, who was sitting on her haunches, scratching the velvet fabric of the chair on which she had just been sitting.

  “You have a scratching post in your bedroom,” Aunt Agnes said. To me, she said, “It’s quite simple, really. First, we make a list of suspects. Next, we send off the substances we took from the cottage to a lab, and if they all test negative, we take some of Gorgona’s hair to have it analysed for poisons.”

  I was lost for words. Had Aunt Agnes completely lost her mind? That seemed more difficult than the labours of Hercules. Just what was I going to do?

  “Oh, and I almost forgot,” Aunt Agnes continued. “If an agent of The Other did murder Gorgona, then one of us might be next on the list.”

  Chapter 5

  “I’ve just had a call from a lawyer!” Aunt Agnes announced. “Bentley Harper.”

  I looked up from my third cup of coffee. “What? He called you so early?”

  “It’s nine in the morning, Valkyrie.”

  I rubbed my temples. I had awoken with a groggy headache and was hitting the coffee hard in an attempt to shift it. “What did he say?” I spread some Vegemite on a piece of toast and sat at the kitchen table.

  “Well, you won’t believe this!”

  We all loo
ked at her expectantly. She smiled at each one of us in turn before continuing. “He was Gorgona’s lawyer—of course, he thought her name was Euphemia Jones. It turns out that we are the executors of the will!” Her voice rose to a high pitch.

  “Who is?” Maude asked.

  “You, me, and Dorothy,” Aunt Agnes said. “He didn’t mention Jezabeth.”

  “Does that mean she wasn’t left anything in her mother’s will?” Aunt Maude leant across the table.

  “We’ll know soon enough,” she said. “He’s on his way here. He wants to talk to us and Jezabeth as well.”

  “Did he ask to speak to anyone else?” Maude asked.

  Aunt Agnes shook her head. “No, so it looks as though there are no other beneficiaries.”

  Maude adjusted Cary on her lap. “Why is he coming here instead of us going to his office?”

  Aunt Agnes pointed to me. “So Valkyrie can overhear, of course. She can hide in the secret room and listen in. I told the lawyer that Dorothy was old and infirm and wouldn’t be able to make it to his office.”

  Dorothy’s cheeks turned as red as a tomato. “Well, you have got some nerve!”

  “Enough of your protesting,” Aunt Agnes said. “You’ll have to act old and infirm, or he will suspect something is amiss. Now, we don’t have much time. One of us will have to fetch Jezabeth, while Valkyrie hides in the secret room.”

  “Do I have enough time to put on some make-up and some nice clothes, do you think?” Dorothy asked her.

  “Just stay as you are, Dorothy,” Aunt Agnes snapped. “I don’t think he wants to date you.”

  “Well then, I’ll go and fetch Jezabeth!”

  Aunt Agnes stepped in front of her to forestall her. “You can’t! You’re old and infirm, remember? Go into the living room now and sit on a chair and try to look ill or something, or maybe upset.”

  “Then I won’t have to act,” Dorothy snapped. She stomped out of the room.

  “I’ll go and fetch Jezabeth,” Maude said.

  Agnes nodded. “And I’ll take Valkyrie to the secret room.” She escorted me to the room, in which I had been several times of late as it led to the passageway between Mugwort Manor and Henry Ichor’s estate, which was now owned by Lucas. Henry was Lucas’s deceased uncle. Apparently, Aunt Agnes and Henry had a dalliance some years ago, hence the tunnel, or so Aunt Agnes said. My parents had been hiding out at Henry’s estate and I’d been meeting them in the tunnel.