Wild Secrets (A Wilder Witch Mystery Book 3)

by Jade Wolfe

  “Oh, baloney. You love it.”

  I laughed and hung up. You love it, he had said, and that made me realize what was wrong with Lavinia’s story.

  Not once, during the entire conversation, did she seem upset by his indiscretions. She didn’t profess to love him, didn’t act upset, nothing like that. She hadn’t acted like the wounded wife, and she hadn’t seemed angry about the situation. In fact, now that I thought about it, I realized that she didn’t even seem to be grieving. Not really. She hadn’t said that she loved her husband, either - we could just as easily have been talking about some random acquaintance as her life partner.

  After our talk at the diner, and after the revelations about Bess, I really didn’t believe that she would kill Jasper.

  Now, I wasn’t so sure. The weeping wife from yesterday was nowhere to be seen this evening.

  Maybe it was time to have a talk with Bess, one on one.

  Now I just had to figure out how to run into her. Accidentally, of course.

  As it turned out, Dante beat me to it, although I never would have known if May Marie hadn’t called to gossip the next morning. “They brought her in kicking and screaming,” she told me, laughing. “You should have seen it. She scared Dale.”

  It actually didn’t take much to scare Dale, I thought. “Are they arresting her?”

  “Yep. Ben thinks all they’ve got is a manslaughter charge, though. They took her statement earlier and officially arrested her just a few minutes ago.”

  “Wow.”

  “I know. She is so mad.”

  “Listen, I’ve got to go,” I said. “But could you have Dante call me when he gets done there?”

  “Sure.”

  I practically paced the house waiting for him to call back. When he did, he had a question for me. “If I drop off Bill’s keys, could you check on his shop for him? He’s driving himself nuts worrying about it.”

  “Sure. I’ll meet you at the door.

  I pulled open the front door just as he pulled in. He didn’t come inside. “I’ve got a lot of paperwork to do - I’ll stop by later, all right?”

  I put my hand on his open window. “Wait! What made you arrest Bess?”

  “She attacked an old man.”

  “So you arrested her for murder?” I asked. Either he had more information that he wasn’t telling, or he was really jumping the gun here.

  Dante looked confused. “What? No - we arrested her for assault.”

  “Oh.” May Marie had sure gotten that one wrong.

  “Anyway, if you’ll check on Bill’s store and then call the hospital to let him know, I’m sure it will ease his mind.”

  I saluted and stepped back from the truck window. “Can do, boss.”

  “Very funny.”

  I watched him pull out and head for town, then went around the side of the house to Dad’s workshop. The idea of going to Bill’s store alone made me nervous, even though there was no logical reason for it. Still...

  I found Dad doing something with a tire. “Hey, can you do me favor?” I asked.

  He looked up, vaguely bemused. “What? Does it involve your mother, your Aunt Sage, or some sort of magic trick?” he asked.

  I laughed. “Nope. None of those things. I have to go check on Bill Bagly’s store for him, and I thought you might come with.”

  Every once in a while I tried to nudge Dad out of the house, just because it wasn’t good for him to hide away here all the time. Also, more selfishly, I liked his company. He was an amiable sort of man, very dad-like in his ways, and since my mother died, I was growing more and more aware of how much time I had left to spend with him.

  Not that I would say such a thing out loud. He would get all uncomfortable and gruff if I did. Like I said - very dad-like.

  We climbed into the truck and Sage appeared between us in the center of the bench seat. Dad huffed and looked out the passenger window.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “To the antique shop. Bill asked me to check on it.” Why did she care?

  “You mean that boy,” she corrected.

  “OK, if you say so,” I snapped. Some days I just wasn’t in the mood for her.

  “Sage?” Dad said. “Get lost.”

  I giggled and backed out of the driveway. Sage poofed away.

  “I get that she’s bored,” Dad said, “But she really needs to find a hobby.”

  “I thought her hobby was giving the folks in town mini heart attacks?” I asked.

  “Well, she can’t do that all the time. People will get used to her.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think she lets them actually see her. I think she just...” I paused. What did she do, exactly? “I think she moves things around and makes noise and makes them doubt their own sanity.”

  “She going to end up in trouble.”

  I glanced over at him. He had one arm propped on the passenger window. “You don’t think she’d actually hurt someone, do you?”

  “Nope. If she could, I’d be dead by now.” He laughed.

  It was Tuesday afternoon and town was dead. Only a handful of people were walking around, and I didn’t see much movement in the storefront windows, either. The kids would still be in school, but where were the adults? There were usually a few groups of retired ladies window shopping, at least. Wilder tended toward an older population.

  “I wonder where everybody is,” I mused as I made a right turn onto the bridge and rolled across. Another left and I was turning into the parking lot at Bill’s store.

  “The weather is turning. Makes old bones ache,” Dad replied, rubbing his own leg. It had always bothered him, but I’d forgotten that until just now.

  He was right about the weather. Even I could feel the difference in the air, now that winter was at our collective doorstep. It was the time of year that folks started up their indoor hobbies - reading and sewing and settling in before the fire. The thought reminded me that I needed to get the workshop and carriage house fitted for heating, so that Dad and I could both keep working on our own hobbies through the winter.

  I climbed down from the truck and fished Bill’s key from the front pocket of my jeans as I walked to the front door. “I was going to buy you the book Bess stole,” I told him. “It was a signed copy of Jasper’s latest, and I thought you might like it.”

  He nodded. “That will be worth some money now, I guess.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I really didn’t have a clue about book values or what might enhance their collect-ability. “It’s probably already sold to the highest bidder.”

  Dad watched me unlock the door. It made a satisfying click and I put the key back into my pocket. “You don’t think she wanted to just keep it?” he asked me.

  I pushed the door open and went inside. The store was spooky quiet and I immediately felt that abandoned atmosphere, as if no one had been here in a long time. Which was silly - me, Bill, and about ten emergency personnel were here just yesterday, so why did it feel this way?

  Dad felt it, too. He ran a hand along an antique bench and shivered. “This place is freezing.”

  It was, too. I wandered around for a few minutes until I found the thermostat and poked the little lever up a notch. Somewhere in the back of the building, a furnace roared to life. I walked back toward the front of the store. Dad was poking around behind the counter now. He looked up when I got closer. “Come here,” he said.

  I went to stand on the customer side of the counter.

  He held up the blue-covered thriller, the same one I’d been holding the other day. The same one I’d been planning to buy. The one we thought Bess had stolen.

  My mouth dropped open. “Is that...?”

  “I think so.” He flipped open the cover and I saw the familiar sharp, black signature inside. Then he echoed the thought that immediately came to my mind. “So if she didn’t steal this book, why was she here, beating up Bill?”

  Chapter Nine

  I shook my head and looked at the
book again. “I have no idea,” I answered him.

  My mind was racing. I knew Bess wanted this book. I knew Bess was here, and that she hurt Bill. He specifically said, “Redhead. Book.” I remembered. He confirmed it later, too, so it wasn’t like he was just mistaken at the time of the break-in.

  “If not this book, what else could she have wanted?” I asked, mostly to myself. “Bill definitely said ‘book’, so if not this, what did he mean?”

  “Did he actually see her take the book, or was he guessing?” Dad asked. “Did he assume it was the book she took because she wanted it so badly?”

  That was a very good question, one that I couldn’t answer. I pulled my cell phone out and called the hospital. When the lady transferred me to his room, he answered on the second ring. I could hear the PA system and the television in the background. “Bill?” I asked.

  “Yep, I’m here. Is this Clover?” he asked.

  “Yes sir. I’m over here at your store.” I explained what I was doing, and what we’d found. “Are you sure you saw her take the Davenport thriller?” I asked him.

  He got quiet, and I even heard the sound of the TV disappear. He was thinking.

  “Now that you mention it,” he said slowly, thoughtfully. “No. I didn’t, actually. I saw her...I saw whatever she hit me with...then I was too busy trying to not die, I guess.”

  “Well, she didn’t take the book. We just found it here. Is there anything else that she might have wanted?” I asked, looking around. There were so many things in the store, and it didn’t really look like he had much of a rhyme or reason for any of it. Vases sat with boxes of baseball cards on the same table. Old toys, still in their boxes shared space with a set of dishes. A pile of folded antique lace handkerchiefs lay in front of old percolator coffee pots on a table in the corner.

  In fact, the only thing that looked the least bit organized were his shelves of books. I glanced that way - and froze. I gripped the phone in my hand and stared. “Bill?” Let me call you back,” I said, and let the phone fall from my ear.

  They were gone. All of the romances on the first few shelves of the bookcases were gone. I remembered specifically that they were romances. I remembered that they reminded me of Aunt Sage.

  And now they were gone.

  Dad was watching me, and his eyes followed my gaze to the bookshelves. “What?” he asked.

  I pointed. “Those shelves were completely full of books the other day.”

  “You think she took all the books?” he asked, confusion lacing his voice.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know why she would? They were just...books. Nothing special. I didn’t see any more copies of Jasper’s books.” I went around a table and walked that way. Between an old desk and a quilt rack I kicked something, and then bent down to pick it up. It was one of the romance novels. I looked and noticed that it was directly between the shelves and the front doors of the store. She must have dropped it.

  Dad came over and took the book out of my hand. “This is one of his,” he said.

  I looked at it, not understanding. “No, Dad. This isn’t even a thriller. It’s a romance, see?” I tapped the book’s cover, some dude in a kilt. A woman in a green dress was kneeling beside him, hanging off one of his knees. It was ridiculous. “Written by...” I cocked my head sideways to read it. “Marjorie Happenstance.”

  A grin bloomed on my father’s face. “Yep.”

  I shook my head. “What? I’m not getting it?”

  He laughed. “It’s been sort of an open secret for the last few years among Jasper’s fans. Nobody has officially confirmed it, and I’m pretty sure he specifically denied it once or twice, but the rumor is that Jasper’s books weren’t making him boatloads of money, so he started writing romances under a pseudonym.” He leaned toward me and waved the book. “Under this particular pseudonym, in fact.”

  My mind was racing. I looked at the empty shelves. How many of them had been written by Marjorie Happenstance? I couldn’t remember. All of them? Just this one? I hadn’t paid any attention, and right now I was kicking myself for it. “How many people knew about this?” I asked him.

  He shrugged. “Like I said, it was only ever officially a rumor. Maybe no one.”

  “Would Bess have known, do you think?”

  He shrugged again. “I don’t know. If anyone did, it would be her, I guess. Didn’t you say that she helped him with all of his books? She could have helped him with these, too.”

  We both studied the book for a minute. “You know,” Dad said finally, “If the truth got out, these books would be worth a fortune in the book world. You know - the secret life of one of the greatest thriller authors of the century.”

  “She would have to have proof that he wrote them,” I murmured.

  “If anyone does, it would be her.”

  He was right. If Bess was gathering up all these books, it probably meant that she, herself, was going to break the news and then profit off the stash. There was no other explanation for stealing these books. “I wonder why she didn’t grab the thriller while she was in here?”

  “Didn’t you say she was short?”

  “Shorter than me.”

  “Then she probably couldn’t find it. Bill had it tucked in under some papers on one of the higher shelves back there.”

  “Oh.”

  “Remember, she was in a hurry, too. She’d just assaulted an old man.”

  I looked down at the book again. “She was willing to kill an old man over this?” I wondered out loud.

  “No. She was willing to kill an old man for the money these are worth,” he corrected me.

  My phone rang, making me jump. It was Bill. I answered it. “Bill, how many books by Marjorie Happenstance did you have here in the store?”

  He didn’t answer right away, then he said, “I have no idea. Most of those old romances are donations. Old ladies collect them, then they die and the kids don’t want them anymore so they bring them to me. Why?” There was a hint of laughter in his voice. “You and that detective finally making things official?”

  “No,” I snapped. “Stop that.”

  He laughed out loud, so I let him know that he’d been robbed of some possibly valuable merchandise. That hushed him. He said, “Shouldn’t you tell the cops?”

  “I’m headed there now. Anything you need me to do here before I lock up?”

  “Nah, don’t worry about that. I’ll get to it tomorrow or the next day. I’m breaking out of this joint.”

  I hung up the phone and called Dante immediately.

  “Good timing. I’m on my way to the hotel to question her again.”

  “Ooh, can I come?” I really wanted to see her squirm her way out of this.

  “No,” Dante said.

  Behind me, Dad said, “No. Let the man do his job, Clover.”

  I sniffed at Dante and stuck my tongue out at my dad. “Are you coming for supper tonight?” I asked.

  “Not sure.” He sounded distracted. “I’ll let you know.”

  “Fine.” I hung up on him. If he came for supper I could at least pump him for information.

  Then I turned to Dad. “I’m going to do some investigating of my own,” I said, looking him dead in the eye. “Are you coming with me or going home?”

  He frowned and put down the cookbook he’d been leafing through. “I don’t think that’s such a great idea,” he said.

  “I know you don’t, but I’m going to do it anyway, before all these people leave town and one of them gets away with murder.” I put my hands on my hips and lifted my chin, daring him. “If you come with me, I’ll at least have back-up.”

  “And if I don’t?” he asked.

  “Then I’ll do it by myself.”

  “You can’t just leave this to the police? I mean, that’s why we have police, Sugar.”

  “I think they could use the help. Dante’s hands are kind of tied with Ben directing the investigation, and the other cops...”

  “They aren’t bad c
ops.”

  “No, of course they aren’t. They just don’t have any experience with murder investigations,” I explained. “I don’t really think they can do a good job.”

  “And you can?”

  I raised an eyebrow and grinned.

  “I know, I know - you’ve done it before.” He sighed. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  I kissed him on the cheek. “I knew you’d understand,” I said.

  “Oh, no. I don’t understand at all. I just don’t want you getting murdered again.”

  I laughed at him. We locked up the store and left.

  “Where to?” he asked once we were in the truck and pulling out pf the parking lot.

  I made a left and crossed the bridge into the main part of town. Traffic was light, probably because it was the middle of the afternoon. I didn’t care why - I was just glad. I loved my big truck, but it was a beast to drive. “I thought we might go to the hotel and talk to the one person I haven’t talked to yet.”

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Pete. He is - was - Jasper’s publicist, right? Did he help him sell those romances? Did he even know about them?”

  Dad thought about that. “His whole job is to publicize things. If he knew, it probably wouldn’t be a secret.”

  “Good point. I still want to talk to him, though. He was acting too weird the day of the murder.”

  “Oh, yeah? Dante said he just seemed upset.”

  “Oh, he was upset, all right. Hysterical, even. You’d have thought his mommy just died, instead of his client.”

  “Sometimes you’re just mean, Clover.”

  I grinned over at him. “I know. I get it from my Aunt Sage.”

  I didn’t really think I was mean. I was just being pragmatic, preferring to not waste time beating around the bush when getting to the point was much more efficient. If my questions were a little...blunt...then that was a small price to pay for getting to the truth, wasn’t it? Apparently some people didn’t agree with me. Also, my bluntness had almost gotten me killed once or twice.

  “Oh, hey.” Dad pointed out through the windshield. “There is your first victim.”

  I looked. Pete Shoemaker was standing on the sidewalk in front of the bakery, waving a donut around as he talked to a well-dressed man. I could see a gold pinky ring flashing on his finger. Well, talking might not have been the right word. It looked more like arguing.