by Tonya Kappes
“No, Pearl said everyone thinks you are some sort of weirdo like a witch or something.”
“And you believe in witches?” I threw my head back and tried to give a good belly laugh, hoping she’d take the bait.
Mewl, mewl. Mr. Prince Charming did his own little nervous laugh and jumped up in my lap. I ran my fingers down his back. His back arched.
“Of course I don’t, but there are people out there who like to believe they are and if that’s the case, I don’t need that publicity along with Burt’s death.” She had some underlying meaning to her words and it struck my soul.
“Are you saying that you might break our contract? Because I’m not a witch or anything of the sort. I’m just a homeopathic lotion maker who makes people feel better with natural herbs.” I had to convince her to let me stay. The village was counting on me to bring in the extra income I had promised to give them. Plus I couldn’t live with myself if I failed. “Plus, you need me in more ways than one.”
“How so?” she questioned.
“First off with my product. You and I both know you are going to make money and it will bring you back in the black.” The next reason had to be enough convincing for her to keep me. “I have a sneaky feeling I can help you figure out who killed Burt and why they want the police to think it’s you.”
“They really do think it’s me?” She sobbed, bringing her hands to her face.
“The spouse is always the first suspect.” I knew Oscar and the Elders told me not to say anything unless Mac was present, but I knew in my gut Tiffany didn’t have anything to do with Burt’s murder.
Someone wanted the police to believe it was her and get her out of the way and there was only one person I could think of that would benefit.
Jenny Rossen. Burt’s mom.
First I needed to get my hands on Tiffany’s contract where she gave Burt and his mom some of the company. If Burt had a will, did he give his shares to his mom or back to Tiffany?
“Did Burt have a will?” I asked.
“Yes.” She nodded. “But I’m sure it has me listed as the beneficiary.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Like an alarm, my intuition kicked in, telling me Tiffany was going to be sorely disappointed.
Chapter Thirteen
“Good work.” Mary Ellen appeared out of thin air. Her long black hair was pulled up into a bun on top of her head in a very elegant way. She had on a black body suit. She was long and lanky like a lean cat. She walked around my office with an aqua colored potion bottle in her hand. She pulled the wand out of the bottle and flung the liquid around the room, making sure to get all the corners saturated.
I didn’t have to ask her what she was doing because in my gut I could sense it was an all-knowing potion. She was giving a jolt to my already alert senses.
“Nice way to stay in the business with the lotions because it’s up to you to keep our heritage a secret.” Walking slowly, her hips swayed. She turned on her heels and strode over to the desk. She picked up Madame Torres. “How are you today?”
“I’m divine, Mary.” Madame Torres appeared. A big smile on her face. “I’m so glad to have you here keeping this one in line.”
“Are you joking me?” I rolled my eyes and plucked Madame Torres out of Mary Ellen’s grip. “You have been about zero help.”
“I showed you the killer.” Her face set in a vicious expression. “It’s up to you to figure it out.”
“Is this true?” The look on Mary Ellen’s face mingled eagerness and tenderness. “If this is true, you need to tell me. I’m the one who was assigned this case and I have a concert in Dubai I would like to attend tomorrow night. I’m in fear I am going to have to cancel because of the mess you have gotten yourself into.”
“She didn’t show me the killer’s face, but I have a sneaky suspicion who it might be and I’m going to follow up on my hunch.” My eyes clouded with visions from Madame Torres’s scene of the fight between Burt and the other woman. “Don’t cancel your plans just yet. I need a little time.”
“Time I can give you.” She waved her hand in the air and disappeared as fast as she came. But not giving me the time she said she could, because Mac McGurtle was knocking on the door and let himself in, Tiffany Rossen following closely behind.
“June.” He nodded, plopping his briefcase down on the desk. He scooted Madame Torres across the desk. “Madame Torres, Mr. Prince Charming.” He greeted each one of my familiars as though it was no big deal that Tiffany was in the room.
His blue eyes looked at Tiffany. He broke into a leisurely smile and pushed his large black-rimmed glasses up on his fat nose before his thick fingers opened the briefcase.
“Shall we?” He put his hand out gesturing me to sit. “Now, we have an agreement here between two parties. Ms. Heal, my client, and Head To Toe Works, your company.” He pulled the contract out and flipped a few pages and stuck it out for Tiffany to get a look. “My client is in no way held responsible for the couple of hundred bottles that went out into your stores today. It specifically states her homeopathic cures will be bottled in the bottles provided by my client, June Heal, and no other packaging material shall be used.”
“Mac,” I interrupted.
“June, Order of the Elders.” He jabbed the paper with his thick finger and continued to give Tiffany the business. “Therefore, you have no legal right to put those bottles on the shelf with my client’s name on them. Any questions?” He looked up over the rims of his glasses.
“Mac,” I nodded my head. “Can I see you in the bathroom for a second?”
Without a word between us, I gave the one-second finger gesture to Tiffany and shut the bathroom door behind Mac and myself.
“I have taken care of it.” I gave him a quick run down of what I had done with the bottles and gave them the okay to ship them, but in the process happened upon the dead body of Burt. “I think that is why the Marys called you in. For some strange reason the security guard thinks I killed Burt.”
“I see.” Mac rubbed his chin and looked into the air. “I told the Elders this was not a good idea for you to take your potions out of the Village. I told them that after we got you in Whispering Falls to keep you there and now look. I must go see Oscar.”
In a flash he was gone.
“Great!” I threw my hands in the air. “How am I going to explain to Tiffany where you went?” Keeping up with the lies I was having to tell to keep my heritage a secret was getting hard to keep up with.
“Tiffany,” I planted a fake grin on my face and shut the bathroom door behind me. “Do you mind giving me and Mac a few minutes alone? I’ll have this all straightened up in a few minutes.”
“Okay.” There was hesitation in her voice. “Do you think you could come down and look at the bottles when you get a second? And we do have that meeting with the board about your product.”
“I thought in light of what happened with Burt that it was going to be cancelled?” It seemed very strange to continue business as usual when a major player in the Head To Toe Works company was murdered.
“It’s still a business,” she stated. “Did Apple shut down when Steve Jobs died?”
She had a good point. Only Head To Toe Works was not Apple.
I gave her a few minutes to get on with whatever she was doing before I decided to go to the factory and check out my products on the new line with the real bottles.
I was happy to see that Pearl was on the front of the line of Gentle June’s. She seemed to be the one who really championed the bottle and stood up for me when Josh was betting I was a witch.
“How is everything going?” I asked and noticed how nice the bottles looked. The pale yellow bottles were in the shape of a genie bottle. The lid was a pump so they didn’t have any type of caps to pull off and the customer didn’t have to unscrew it to get the little leftover on the bottom out.
“Just fine.” Pearl looked me up and down. “Are you sure you ain’t no witch or do some sort of voodoo shit?”
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“Why would you say something like that?” I asked. “Do I look like a witch?”
“No, but that video the security guard put on YouTube sure does look like it.” Josh’s brow rose an inch.
“He did what?” I shuddered inwardly at the thought of something like this getting out. It was exactly what the Marys were afraid of.
But no, I had to practically beg them to let me do this when they had their meeting with the Village Council members.
“Yep.” Pearl nodded her head, but didn’t skip a beat putting the bottles in the machine to get filled up with my stress free lotions. “Search ‘Burt Rossen’s killer’.”
“Ouch.” I shook my wrist when it felt hot and looked down. The liquid in the potion bottle charm was bubbling. “Is that guard here this morning?”
“He is.” Josh pointed to the offices up above. “He had a meeting with some policeman about the discovery. He swears you were doing some voodoo chant. Said he was going to call the news too.”
“Not if I can help it.” I bolted out of the factory and up the steps.
Harm to none; that was what Bella had told me about the liquid inside the potion charm. But what did that mean?
“I’m going to have to cancel the meeting today.” I informed Tiffany after I had gone to the security station looking for that guard. He was nowhere to be found. “I have an emergency in Whispering Falls.”
Tiffany looked up at me from her desk. Her makeup ran down her face.
“Maybe you should go home.” I suggested when I noticed all the pictures of her and Burt scattered all over the top of her desk. “Even if you and Burt didn’t have the best relationship, you were still married, you shared a life together.”
“I loved him,” she sputtered through sobs. “And I’m afraid he never loved me. It was all a sham.”
“What are you talking about?” I didn’t understand what she was telling me.
“We are done for.” She shook her head and picked up a piece of paper off the desk. “After you asked me about the will, I called our lawyer. Burt and Jenny had recently redone his will to make her his executrix and leave her all his shares of the company if something were to happen to him. It not only gives her two-thirds of the company once the estate settles, but immediate control right away between her shares and her power over Burt’s shares in his estate.”
“That doesn’t mean Head To Toe Works is finished.” The more I thought about this Jenny woman; the more and more she began to become a suspect. What mother would kill her son? A greedy one.
“I just got off the phone with her. She’s ordered the production line to be shut down as of right now.” Tiffany hung her head. “I’m sorry, June. It’s over. There is no amount of Gentle June that will take this much stress away.”
It was hard trying to swallow the big pill of failure. Not accomplishing what I had set out to do didn’t sit well with my soul, or maybe it was my intuition nagging me. The fight between Burt and the woman the night of his death could be the link Oscar needed to help find the killer.
It wasn’t like I felt the woman killed Burt. There were plenty of women who worked in the factory, but only one I had seen him grab. Tiffany. This woman was the second. The logical situation was the woman killed him and put him on the conveyor belt, only Burt wasn’t the smallest of men. And I couldn’t help but think the woman in the fight Madame Torres showed me would be capable of hoisting Burt on the conveyor belt.
The ride to the Locust Grove Police Station seemed much longer than usual. The feeling of guilt for my village who had put so much confidence in me going outside of our community to bring extra income to the village weighed heavy on me. Telling Oscar the deal had not even come to fruition made it real. More real than I was ready to deal with.
Plus I had brought the Marys and Mac McGurtle into the mix with all the contracts and to make sure no one outside of our village found out who the resident of Whispering Falls really was.
“Here goes nothing,” I murmured under my breath when I put the Green Machine in park.
The lights in the parking lot led my way into the station. It was getting dark and I knew I might have been cutting it close to when Oscar was off his shift.
“June, how are you?” Sonny asked when I walked in.
He had strawberry-blond hair with freckles dotted around his face. His jaw was square and he had a nice deep smile. He wasn’t the handsomest of men, but he sure was reliable and good-hearted from what my intuition told me.
“Hi, Sonny.” I gave a slight wave and glanced around the room looking for Oscar. “Is Oscar around?”
“I let him get home. He worked late on the Head To Toe Works homicide last night. Which reminds me,” he stood up and tugged on the belt, pulling his pants up around his gut. “Oscar said you had been working there or something.”
“Yes,” I spoke loud and clear wondering if I should tell him about Jenny shutting down the facility and the will. Or maybe he already knew. “They purchased my stress free lotion I used to make for the Locust Grove Flea Market.”
I had to choose my words wisely when around people who weren’t familiar with me or Darla.
“I heard from around town how much they miss your mom, Darla is it?” he questioned.
“Darla,” I confirmed.
“They miss your mom’s booth at the market. But Oscar tells them about your shop in Whispering Falls.” His eyes searched mine. I could tell he was trying to use his cop instinct to get a feel for me. I stood there, holding my own. “Quaint town.”
“Oscar and I love it.” I grinned from ear-to-ear.
“Congratulations by the way. I hear you haven’t set a real date yet.” Sonny was digging. Was he digging for the investigation or for Oscar?
“Soon. Anyway, how is the investigation going?” I asked. “Any suspects?”
“Too early. What do you know about Tiffany?” he asked.
“On the record or off?” I had listened to Oscar so many times that I sort of knew when to talk and when not to.
“We are just talking here, June.” He settled back in his chair with his hands folded over his chest. “Anything you can tell me to bring a killer to justice would be nice.”
“I don’t know a whole lot. They had come to Whispering Falls over Christmas and Burt seemed to cater to her. He was the one who really wanted my product in the stores initially.” My voice lowered.
“Initially?” His ears perked and he sat up, this time with his hand clasped and resting on the desk in front of him.
“In Whispering Falls, but when it came time to bottling the product, I found they weren’t using the bottles I had given them at no cost and were instead using cheap plastic ones.” I shrugged. “I thought we had gotten the issue resolved.”
“That was why you were there last night? Because it seems to me if you thought the issue was resolved, you wouldn’t have to go back after hours.” His tone put caution in the air between us.
“Are you accusing me of doing something?” I asked to make clear I was understanding him.
“Just answer the question.” He shrugged, his eyes narrowed.
“I have nothing to hide.” Though I did know the Elders didn’t want me to say anything to anyone without Mac present. “I went there to make sure the bottles were going to be ready for the assembly line the next morning for work. We were already a day behind and as you know, time is money. That’s how any company works.”
“You have been taken off the suspect list.” He picked up the pen off his desk and tapped it on the file that read ROSSEN.
“Glad to know, but I didn’t realize I was a suspect.” That was a lie. I knew enough to know that everyone was a suspect until it was whittled down.
“The security camera showed you trying to get in through the security gate and Mr. Rossen was shot hours before you got there.” His chest heaved up and then down when he took a big deep breath before letting it out in a slow steady stream. “And his wife was in the hospital when I went to que
stion her for a case of the nerves.”
“Really?” I bit back the desire to tell him that I had just come from the headquarters and she was fine and dandy. “And I’m trying to locate his mother, Jenny Rossen, but she hasn’t turned up.”
“She hasn’t?” I gasped, knowing the will between mother and son was a good reason to kill and how Jenny could now have a majority of the company.
“Nope.” He shook his head. “It’s like she doesn’t exist. But I’m not done looking. I heard a lot of those workers go to Mac’s, that bar on the other side of town, after supper. I think they know something they aren’t telling me.”
His words struck my gut. Doesn’t exist? Jenny does. At least that was why and how I had met Tiffany in the first place. The dreaded stress of the mother-in-law. Plus Pearl or Josh knew something. At least Faith said one of them, he or Pearl, and he seemed to be the likely one since he seemed to have his ear in everyone’s conversations. It was about time I stepped my witchy toes inside of Mac’s.
Chapter Fourteen
“They what?” Raven Mortimer poured a cup of hot coffee from the freshly brewed pot and set it between us. She merely stared, tongue-tied. Her black hair was pulled back in a clip and she wore a pink apron with the Wicked Good Bakery Logo written in lime green.
Wicked Good Bakery was closed when I finally made it back to Whispering Falls, but it didn’t stop me from knocking on the door when I saw Raven working on the next day’s pastries. I needed a little June’s Gem fix to kill the stress of talking to Sonny about the case. I’d kept my little secret about Burt’s change in his will to myself. I really wanted to tell Oscar and let him do with it what he needed to do.
“Jenny, the new CEO and Burt’s mom, halted production. Everything. The entire product line.” I picked up the delicate china cup and took a sip. I picked up the June’s Gem and sunk my teeth into it. I closed my eyes and let the chocolaty goodness settle the nerve war going on inside of me. “Not only that, but Burt changed his will for his mom to get his portion of the business which. . .”
