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

by Morgana Best

  “But The Other hates shifters,” I pointed out.

  Aunt Agnes waved one finger in the air. “Breena is not an actual shifter, remember? There was a spell on her to make turn her into a cat. It’s the spell that made her shift. Oh, here she comes now.”

  As Aunt Agnes changed the subject to Dorothy’s vegetables, I was left to wonder—what if Breena was the murderer? What if she had been working for The Other all this time? But why would she want to harm me? That didn’t sit right with me. So then, if Breena had killed Gorgona, maybe it was somebody else who had tried to kill me? Aloud, I said, “Could there be two people involved in this?”

  “Two people?” Aunt Agnes said in surprise.

  “We’ve been assuming it was one person,” I said with a slight nod of my head towards Breena, who was sitting in the sand swiping at passing ants, “but what if two people were involved? What if it was one person who murdered Gorgona and a second person who tried to murder me?”

  Aunt Agnes frantically nodded and then said, “You might have something there, Valkyrie. But who could these two people be?”

  “Karen Cosgrove and her lover, Franklyn Sutton,” I said. “I could easily see the two of them working together. And what about Jezabeth and Hemlock? I could see them working together too. They might have murdered Gorgona to get the inheritance. Maybe Jezabeth is broke.”

  Aunt Agnes shook her head. “I already made some discreet inquiries and I know she’s just as wealthy as she ever was. I actually wondered if she had murdered her mother to get the inheritance, so I did a bit of snooping.”

  “Then that’s all the more reason we have to speak to Karen,” I said.

  Aunt Agnes agreed. “Let’s go. We have already spoken to her lover and told him we’re investigating Euphemia’s death. I’ll come straight out and ask Karen if she had anything to do with the murder.”

  I held up both hands, palms upwards, to the sky. “But what good will that do? She won’t tell us the truth. She’s hardly going to admit that she did it.”

  “Perhaps not, but we’ll get a vibe from her,” Aunt Agnes said. “Anyway, she’s the last person left to question, so let’s do it now and get it over with.”

  I checked the time on my phone. “Do we have time to question her before we show Linda the house?”

  Aunt Agnes stood up. “We do if we go now. Breena, you had better come with us this time. I don’t like leaving you alone at the manor. Or maybe you could stay with Dorothy?”

  “No way, I’m coming too,” Aunt Dorothy said.

  “Okay Breena, you’re coming with us. Don’t speak to anyone, and if they speak to you, just nod at them,” Aunt Agnes said. “I don’t want to risk leaving you here alone in case the police come. And things seem to be getting more dangerous.”

  Soon the five of us were packed into Aunt Agnes’s car, heading for Karen’s manicure and pedicure salon.

  Before long, we were standing outside the door. Aunt Agnes addressed us all. “I’ll go in and ask her if she can come and have coffee with us now, but if she’s in the middle of working on a client, we’ll just have to wait.”

  Aunt Agnes was not gone for long. “Karen apparently has coffee by herself once a week at this time at a café on Main Beach,” she said. “Let’s all go there now.”

  “But who is she having coffee with?” I asked her.

  “By herself. They said she goes every week to have time to herself,” Agnes said.

  “I wonder if she’s meeting her lover there?” Maude asked.

  “We will soon find out,” Agnes said, “but I very much doubt they’d be seen together in such a public place. And Breena, don’t drink anything out of a saucer.”

  “No, I won’t,” she said.

  Breena really was saying more and more all the time, and this had happened since Gorgona’s death. That, to me, did seem significant, suspiciously so.

  “How are we going to play this, Agnes?” asked Aunt Maude.

  “Follow my lead.”

  Aunt Maude turned to her. “You really don’t have any idea, do you?”

  “No.”

  I thought this was going to be quite awkward. Still, I had no option but to follow Aunt Agnes into the café. Karen was indeed sitting alone, her back to the entrance, with a huge plate of scrumptious cupcakes in front of her.

  “A party of five?” the enthusiastic waitress asked us. “Why don’t you have that table over there? Would that suit?”

  Aunt Agnes pointed to the table closer to us. “Is this one available?”

  “Of course. Please sit down.”

  We all sat down and the waitress handed us menus. I kept my eye on Karen. She didn’t turn around. We all ordered cupcakes and various types of tea. It was only after our cupcakes arrived that Agnes walked over to Karen. Karen jumped as she looked up at Agnes.

  “Why don’t you join us?” Agnes said.

  Karen shook her head. I couldn’t hear what she said, but Aunt Agnes apparently ignored her. “I insist!” Agnes said. “At least sit with us for one cupcake.”

  Karen turned around. Her eyes widened when she saw us all. “Just drag your chair over to our table,” Agnes continued. “I’ll buy you a cupcake. What sort would you like?”

  “I couldn’t eat any more,” Karen said in a small voice once she sat at our table.

  “Well then, there’s no point beating about the bush,” Aunt Agnes said. “By now, you would know we have spoken to you-know-who.”

  Karen’s eyes widened and she nodded.

  It only just occurred to me that Karen might want to kill me because I was responsible for her husband being in jail. On the other hand, maybe she was grateful to me for getting him out of the way.

  “Did you know that somebody attacked Valkyrie? They hit her over the head, dragged her into one of our cottages, and set fire to it?”

  Karen looked shocked at the news. To me, her shock was genuine. I continued to stare at her, trying to judge her reactions, as Aunt Agnes continued. “We think whoever murdered Euphemia Jones tried to murder Valkyrie.”

  Karen finally found her voice. “But are you sure your boarder was murdered? My friend told me the police said it was natural causes.”

  “They thought so at first,” Aunt Agnes said, “but now they’ve discovered it was poison.”

  Once again, she looked shocked and once more, I judged her shock to be genuine. “Poison?” she repeated.

  Aunt Agnes nodded. “I expect the police will be questioning you soon.”

  Karen was clearly thoroughly terrified. “But I didn’t do it. I didn’t poison anybody,” she said. “It’s my husband who’s a murderer, not me!” She pulled a tissue out of her pocket and rubbed her eyes. When she took the tissue away, two big black circles surrounded her eyes. “I know my um, friend and I had a motive, but it wasn’t us.”

  “I’m sorry to have upset you, Karen,” Aunt Agnes said.

  Karen stood up, picked up her handbag, and hurried away.

  “What you make of that?” Aunt Agnes said.

  “She did look genuinely shocked when you said someone tried to murder me,” I said. “I really don’t think it’s her. I don’t think she was acting.”

  “Nor do I,” Aunt Maude said.

  “I didn’t think she was acting either,” Dorothy said.

  Breena didn’t say anything but continued to nibble on a lemon cheesecake cupcake.

  “Maybe she looked shocked because something dawned on her and she knew it was her lover, after all,” Agnes said.

  Maude and Dorothy disagreed, while I suddenly noticed the time on my phone. “Horrors! We had better hurry. Linda will be at the house in ten minutes.”

  Chapter 18

  “Sorry we’re late,” I said to Linda after I hopped out of Aunt Agnes’s car outside Gorgona’s house.

  “No, you’re right on time,” Linda said. “This house looks even better in real life than it did on the Internet in street view.”

  Linda and I walked up the stairs. W
hen I reached the top, I looked around to see why the aunts hadn’t followed me. Aunt Agnes was trying to coax Breena out of the car.

  “She’s probably afraid of new places,” Linda said. “I know she wasn’t born as a shifter, but she would still have shifter characteristics even though she got them by means of a spell.”

  I was about to go back down and suggest Aunt Dorothy or someone stay in the car with Breena, but she walked up the steps, looking around furtively. Her eyes were huge.

  “It’s okay,” I said in soothing tones. “Maybe Aunt Dorothy could sit with you while the rest of us show Linda around the house.”

  Breena simply nodded.

  “That’s a good idea,” Aunt Dorothy said, putting her arm around Breena’s shoulders.

  As soon as we walked inside, Hemlock appeared. “I thought it was only a real estate agent coming,” she said by way of greeting. “What are you all doing here? Are youse allowed to be here?” She shot me a particularly spiteful look and then looked Breena up and down.

  “The real estate agent is Linda who is a friend of mine. You met her at dinner the other night.”

  “And my sisters and I are executors of the will,” Aunt Agnes said.

  Hemlock pointed at Breena, who was still looking terrified. “And who is she?”

  “She is my assistant,” Linda said.

  Aunt Agnes at once went on the offensive. “And what are you doing here, Hemlock? We specifically said you couldn’t be here when there were any showings. We gave you plenty of notice.”

  “I lost track of time. I’ve just been down to the beach,” she said in a petulant tone. “Now, how long will youse be here? I don’t want to have to go out for long. I’m bored. There’s nothing to do in this town.”

  “I’ll text you as soon as we leave,” Aunt Agnes said.

  “I’m going to have to sage this house when I come back,” Hemlock snapped. “Youse all give it bad energy.” With that, she stomped out of the front door.

  “We might as well start here in the living room,” Aunt Agnes said.

  Linda pointed to the antiques. “Can we get these antiques out of the way before it goes on sale? The place would look so much better if it’s photographed without all these antiques.”

  Aunt Agnes readily agreed. “Yes, of course. There’s plenty of time for that. We haven’t even applied for probate yet—we have to wait for the death certificate to be sent to Jezabeth before we can apply. It will probably be months before we can list the house.”

  “If any clients ask about a house like this, I can certainly tell them it’s coming up for sale,” Linda said. “Wow, this house is massive. I knew it was big from the outside, but it’s even bigger than I expected.”

  “It doesn’t have much of a back yard, though,” I told her. “Come and see.” I led Linda out the back and showed her the back yard.

  “No room for a pool,” she said. “That will be a drawback as far as the price goes.”

  “Do people who live so close to the beach still want a pool?” I asked.

  “Absolutely, especially houses in this upper price range! And besides, the Lighthouse Bay beach is shut today due to the shark warning. That happens a lot.”

  I looked up to the sky and saw the shark watch helicopter flying overhead. “Yes, I can see why someone would want a swimming pool, then,” I said.

  We walked back inside. “It has six bedrooms and three bathrooms,” I said. “Hemlock is living in the master bedroom at the moment, but all the other bedrooms are free.”

  Aunt Agnes beckoned us over. She opened the door to the first bedroom and then let out a gasp. I hurried past her, half expecting to see a dead body, but I saw a pile of towels on the ground. They were soaking wet.

  Aunt Agnes muttered a few rude words and picked them up. “These are beach towels! Hemlock must have dropped these when she came back from the beach.”

  “What was she doing in this room?” I said. “She’s supposed to be restricted to the master bedroom.”

  Aunt Agnes hurried past me with the wet towels in the direction of the laundry room.

  She let out another shriek. We all hurried to the laundry room. Once more, I half expected to find another body. To my relief, there wasn’t one, but Aunt Agnes was pointing to a big sign taped over the washing machine.

  It read,

  ‘Dear Aunts, I hope youse aren’t expecting me to pay for the water and electricity here. Obviously youse have to pay for it. I’m just a houseguest. Love and light from Hemlock. xxx’

  Linda turned to me, her jaw open. “Is she for real?”

  I simply shrugged. “And it’s all made worse by the fact that she’s a relative of mine,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  Aunt Dorothy and Breena had come to the laundry room at Aunt Agnes’s second scream. “Well, we might as well take a tour of the rest of the house,” Aunt Agnes said. “I can assure you, Linda, that this house is going to be shipshape by the time probate is through. We’ll kick Hemlock out by then and we’ll have the house professionally cleaned.”

  When we reached the kitchen, I was shocked to see mess everywhere. Open packets of food were scattered about, and dirty plates lined the kitchen sink.

  “How long has Hemlock been living here?” Linda asked.

  “Just a few days,” I told her.

  Linda made a clicking sound with her tongue. “This won’t do at all. It smells foul.”

  I was about to say it didn’t smell that bad when I remembered that Linda was a shifter wolf. Of course, everything would smell worse to her, given her heightened senses.

  As we progressed through the bedrooms and bathrooms, it seemed as though Hemlock had left her mark on every room. “Does she have any friends in town?” Linda asked. “How can one girl make all this mess?”

  “No idea,” Aunt Agnes said with a sigh. “Now, the next room is the fifth bedroom. It’s upstairs and has lovely views, but Gorgona was using it as an altar room.”

  Linda ground to a halt. “It will have wards against shifters.”

  Aunt Agnes patted her shoulder. “You don’t need to worry. I cleansed it thoroughly, and it’s perfectly safe now. It took some doing, I can tell you!”

  Linda hesitated at the altar room door and then stepped inside. “That’s a relief,” she said. “I can’t feel anything. You certainly did a good job in here.”

  Just then, we heard a scream behind us. I swung around, somewhat disoriented. For a minute, I thought Aunt Agnes had found something else Hemlock had done, but Aunt Agnes had been standing in front of me.

  It was Breena. Her hands were clutching her face and her mouth was wide open. She turned around and ran down the stairs.

  “What was all that about?” Aunt Dorothy asked.

  “I don’t know,” Aunt Agnes said. “Well, don’t just stand there, Dorothy—get after her and find out what’s wrong.”

  I crossed to the window and looked out. To my surprise, Breena ran out the front of the house. I hoped Dorothy would be behind her.

  Jezabeth’s car pulled up. “Didn’t you tell Jezabeth that we were showing the house to a real estate agent?” I said to Aunt Agnes.

  “No, I only told Hemlock,” she said. “I don’t know why that irritating girl didn’t tell her mother.”

  To my horror, Jezabeth caught Breena by the arm and twisted it behind her back. She forced her into her car and drove off at speed.

  Chapter 19

  I swung around. “Jezabeth kidnapped Breena!”

  I looked back out the window to see Aunt Dorothy standing on the street watching Jezabeth drive away at high speed. I turned to Aunt Agnes. “What are we going to do? Why would she kidnap Breena?”

  “Maybe she thinks we’re onto her. Maybe she murdered her mother, so she kidnapped Breena to use as a bargaining tool,” Aunt Maude said.

  “Or maybe she knows Breena is really a shifter cat,” I said in fright.

  “Oh my goodness!” Linda was looking at some of the potions in the cupboard. “Oh m
y goodness!” she said again.

  Aunt Agnes went over to her. “We can’t worry about anything now, Linda. We have to find Breena.”

  “I might be able to throw some light on that subject,” Linda said.

  “What you mean?” I asked. “Those herbs and potions could tell you where Jezabeth has taken Breena?”

  “Not necessarily where, but I think I can tell you why.”

  By now Dorothy was back in the room. “Jezabeth took Breena against her will!” Her face was white.

  “We know. I saw her out the window,” I said, “but Linda has something to tell us.”

  “Can’t it wait until later?” Dorothy said.

  “Hush, Dorothy,” Aunt Agnes said. “What is it, Linda?”

  “These potions here—I’ve never actually seen them, I’ve only heard about them—are very strong, horribly potent potions.”

  “What are they used for?” Aunt Agnes said.

  “They’re used in a very dangerous and very rare ritual to turn somebody into a shifter.”

  “Are you saying Gorgona turned someone into a shifter?” Aunt Maude asked her.

  Linda gestured to the cupboard. “All shifters know about this, but it’s more of myth than anything because it’s so rare. It’s a way to turn someone into a shifter without biting them. Obviously, it’s completely illegal.”

  “Is it permanent?” I asked her.

  “Yes,” Linda said, “and there’s more.”

  Aunt Agnes waved one hand at her. “Then do tell us. We’re running out of time to find Breena. Every moment counts.”

  Aunt Maude interrupted her. “If somebody can turn someone into a shifter like that, how come I’ve never heard of it?”

  “You probably have heard of it but you’ve forgotten,” Aunt Agnes said. “It does ring a bell with me, but I haven’t heard of it for decades, maybe even longer.”

  Linda shook her head. “It’s a terrible thing. It turns someone into a shifter, but it makes them the puppet of the person who turned them.”