The Halloween Love Spell

by Morgana Best

  I realised Thyme was making appropriate sympathetic noises, so I did too. “That’s terrible,” I said. “Imagine foreclosing on your house. What a horrible man.”

  Carol let out a string of swear words, just as her doorbell rang. Her hand flew to her mouth. “That’s my appointment now. Here’s my card.”

  I looked at the card, and was surprised to see it had been printed by a home computer on normal printing paper. Carol must have noticed my surprise, because she leant over the desk and tapped the card. “Waste not, want not,” she said. “I’m always careful to make my dollars go further. I never buy anything new. Everything in my house was bought from a garage sale. This jewellery was left to me by my mother.” She jiggled the gold bracelets on her wrist. “I would never buy anything as extravagant as jewellery or make up. I never throw out any food scraps, because I can always find a way to recycle them.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I smiled and nodded.

  Carol jumped to her feet. “Call me and we’ll set up another time. I’m sorry to hurry you out.” She shot me a wide-eyed look.

  I stood up, grateful for the reprieve, and followed her back through the dirty house. Thyme and I nodded at Carol’s appointment, a portly man with grey hair.

  As soon as we were in my car, I said, “She did it. I can’t believe she said she hated pets. Anyway, she used to live on a farm, so I bet she had plenty of old rat poison lying around. I wonder if her husband died of natural causes?”

  “Who doesn’t like animals?” Thyme said in disgust. “That’s appalling. I can’t believe she takes clients through that filthy house. I’m surprised she has any clients at all.”

  “And I’m surprised she so freely admitted that she hated Myles Woods,” I said. “I wonder if the police know about her? Surely she would have said if the police had questioned her.”

  Thyme shrugged. “Maybe they don’t know about her.”

  I started the car and drove slowly down the road. “Kristen Woods volunteered the information about Carol to us when we had met her only a couple of minutes earlier. I’m sure she would’ve told the police about Carol. It’s not as if she was trying to hide it.”

  My phone rang. I pressed a button, and the Bluetooth kicked in. “It’s Marina,” the voice said. “I’m at the café opposite the bottom pub. How long before you get here? I was going to ask Alder, but he’s deep in conversation.”

  I was thoroughly confused. “Marina, I don’t understand. I’m not going to any café.”

  There was silence for a moment, and then Marina spoke. “Sorry about that. It must be a business lunch. In that case, I won’t join them.”

  That certainly had not enlightened me. “Join who?”

  “Alder and some tall, blonde woman. I assumed you were coming too, and I was going to join you. Never mind, we can catch up later.”

  She hung up. I felt as if a thousand volts of electricity had hit me.

  Chapter 12

  I drove back to the shop, gripping the steering wheel. What was going on? Surely Alder wasn’t two timing me, but that was twice now, and if the first was an innocent meeting, why hadn’t he mentioned it to me?

  “It’s nothing,” Thyme said. “Amelia, you can’t be worried, surely? Alder would never cheat on you.”

  I realised my knuckles clutching the steering wheel were white, so I loosened my grip. “I know.” And I did know. So why was I so upset? I let out a long sigh. “I’ll feel better when I get back to the shop and into my routine, I suppose.”

  We spent the rest of the short trip in silence. I just couldn’t get Alder out of my mind. I knew it had to be innocent, but why the secrecy? As I approached the shop, I saw the mysterious woman walking down the street. “Look, Thyme! It’s her.”

  “Follow her,” Thyme said urgently.

  I slowed the car to a crawl, until a car came up behind me and I had to drive on at normal speed. “I’ve lost her.”

  “Never mind. Head back to the shop and we might see her on the way.”

  Unfortunately, there was no sign of her at all. I parked and went inside, and none too soon, because the shop was full. Thyme and I helped Ruprecht serve, and in no time at all we had cleared the crowd of customers.

  “Sorry about that, Ruprecht,” I said when the last customer had left. I took the opportunity to inhale the scent of cupcakes. It was always comforting.

  He waved my concerns aside. “That crowd only arrived moments before you came in,” he told me. “It was no trouble at all.”

  Camino walked over and handed Ruprecht a steaming teacup. “Here’s some Elderberry tea for you. What did you find out?”

  “Carol Hope used to live on a farm,” I told them. “She seems a little strange.”

  Thyme nodded in agreement. “And the thing is, she told us how much she hated Myles Woods. Everything we heard was true—he did foreclose on her farm. She also didn’t like her husband, but she was getting his invalid pension money. If it wasn’t for that, I think she might have dispatched him to the great hereafter before his time.”

  “My money’s on her,” I said. “I think she’s the murderer.”

  Ruprecht stroked his chin. “I did some digging as well. By that I mean that I questioned any of the customers who knew Myles Woods or any of the suspects. I found out that Kristen Woods lives on the edge of town on a farm. It’s not a working farm, it’s an old orchard, but I’m sure she has chemicals lying around.”

  “Let’s go and snoop around,” Thyme said.

  I shook my head. “Kristen would be the number one suspect in the eyes of the police. They always think the spouse did it first up, until they have evidence to the contrary. I’m sure they’ve already searched her barn, and all of her outbuildings as well as her house. After all, they searched my shop and my house.”

  “I wonder if they searched Carol Hope’s house?” Camino said thoughtfully.

  “I’m sure they did,” I said. “Thyme and I were discussing this earlier. Kristen nearly fell over herself telling us about Carol Hope, so I’m sure she’s told the police.”

  Ruprecht agreed with me. “Yes, and even if she didn’t, the first thing the detectives would do would be to look into the disgruntled customers, and Carol Hope seems to be at the top of that list. I’m sure they already searched her house.”

  “Maybe that’s why it’s such a mess,” I said to Thyme. Ruprecht raised his eyebrows, so I continued, “The outside of the house was quite rundown and neglected, and she led us through her house to get to her office which was in a converted garage. The doors to the bedrooms were open, and I couldn’t help but look. Everything was flung on the floor.”

  “I know police make a terrible mess when searching houses on TV,” Ruprecht said, “but in reality, I’m sure that they don’t. They didn’t make a mess of your shop or your house when they searched them, Amelia.” He waved one hand through the air. “All that aside, I’m certain the police would have searched Carol’s house.”

  Thyme groaned. “Well then, we’re back where we started.”

  Ruprecht shook his head. “Not necessarily. Any murderer with a modicum of common sense would hide the strychnine.” He stopped speaking and tapped his chin for a few moments before speaking again. “Okay, this is how I see it. Either the murderer or an associate procured the strychnine under a licence, or they found it lying around somewhere. By that I mean that they found some old rat poison or some sort of bait that was over twenty years old. It seems clear that the murderer in person did not procure the strychnine under a licence. The detectives would be all over that. That leaves us with two avenues for the murderer to get his or her hands on the strychnine. The first is legally, by a licence. That means the murderer must have a relative or a friend who is licensed to use it. The other possibility is that the person already had access to it in the form of old farm chemicals.”

  “Which one do you think it is, Ruprecht?” Camino asked him.

  “The detectives are from Sydney,” Ruprecht said, running
his hands through his hair. “That means they don’t think like country folk do. On the other hand, they would be competent, so they would be searching for any link between the suspects and those who are licensed to use strychnine.”

  “I’m not sure I’m following. What does it matter if they don’t think like country people?” I asked him.

  Ruprecht sipped his Elderberry tea before answering. “The detectives are likely blissfully unaware of the banned farm chemicals that fill most, if not all, the barns in this area.”

  I knew he was leading up to something, but I wasn’t sure just what. “Ruprecht, are you saying we should search Kristen Woods’ barn?” He nodded. “But you said she would have disposed of the strychnine by now,” I told him.

  Ruprecht waggled a finger at me. “Precisely! We can’t look for the existence of current strychnine; we can only look for evidence of past strychnine.”

  My head was spinning, and apparently, so was Thyme’s. “But how on earth do we do that?” she asked him.

  I agreed. I wondered if he was speaking about a powerful spell.

  “It’s a matter of logic,” he told us. “Have I ever told you this particularly good quote about logic from Aristotle’s Organon…”

  “Yes!” Camino, Thyme, and I said in unison.

  “What is the logic in this case?” I asked him, hoping to forestall a spate of quoting from ancient dead dudes.

  Ruprecht had a faraway look on his face. “If there was an old bottle of rat poison containing strychnine in a barn, what else would you expect to find in the barn?”

  I was the first to speak. “All sorts of other old farm chemicals,” I told him.

  He nodded, and looked pleased. “And as rat poison that contains strychnine was a very common poison, would you expect to find a barn full of less common poisons, yet no old rat poison?”

  Thyme rubbed her forehead, and Camino popped a whole triple chocolate cupcake in her mouth. I had the urge to do the same, but I was processing the information. Finally, I said, “I think I’ve got it. Are you saying that if a barn is full of old and now banned chemical poisons, but doesn’t have the very common poison, namely the old strychnine-containing rat poison, then that in itself is suspicious?”

  Ruprecht looked mighty pleased. “Exactly!”

  Thyme raised her eyebrows, and shot me a look. At first I thought it was quite a tenuous connection, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought he was right. Maybe my caffeine and sugar levels were just too low, but it was starting to make sense.

  “So what should we do?” I asked him. “Do we go to the police and tell them the sorts of poisonous agricultural chemicals that are found in these parts?”

  Thyme shook her head. “We’ll never be able to explain it. I think you have to live here to realise how these things work. What would we say? Tell them to look in barns for poisonous chemicals that aren’t there?”

  “You have a point.” I bit my lip. “I really don’t want to go snooping around someone’s barn, trespassing.”

  Thyme clapped her hands. “I’ve got it! No snooping involved. I’ll pretend I’m starting a blog about Bayberry Creek, and I wanted to take some photos of rural settings.”

  Ruprecht and Camino frowned, and I realised I was doing the same as well.

  “Come on,” Thyme urged us. “It’s foolproof. We can go straight after work, Amelia. We’ll go to Kristen Woods’ house and say we wanted to take photos.”

  “Her garden is one of those in the Open Gardens Weekend every year,” Ruprecht said. “You could pretend to take photos of her garden, and then pretend you just spotted the barn, and ask to take photos of it.”

  “But what if she’s the murderer?” I asked them.

  “She won’t feel threatened by you,” Ruprecht explained, “because she would have already disposed of the bottle of rat poison, or whatever form the strychnine was in.”

  I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all, but I supposed I had no choice. What they said was true—some of the peculiarities in small country towns had to be experienced, because they made no sense to a city person in the retelling.

  Ruprecht handed his now empty cup back to Camino and nodded to each of us. “Be careful, both of you, and let me know what you find.” With that, he took his leave.

  “Alder won’t like it,” I said to Thyme.

  The front door chimed. I looked up to see the mysterious woman. I heard Thyme gasp. The woman marched straight over to me. “I’ve been waiting until the wizard left.”

  Thyme and I exchanged glances. “The wizard?” Thyme asked me.

  “I think she meant Ruprecht.”

  Thyme nodded.

  Camino was standing transfixed, staring at the woman. That’s when I realised that the woman was not carrying a handbag. Why hadn’t I noticed that earlier? She was very well-dressed, albeit in a vintage way, but didn’t have a handbag. In each of the occasions I had seen her, she hadn’t been carrying a handbag, and her dress was so tight that I imagined there was no room to fit even the tiniest purse. I found that rather strange, but then again, everything about the woman was strange.

  “I want to stay here permanently,” she announced. “You need to help me.” She addressed that remark to me.

  I instinctively took a step backwards. There was something about her manner that was threatening, but it might have just been the power she radiated. “How can I help you?” I asked her.

  She blew a long ring of cigarette smoke in my direction. I was about to tell her once more that smoking was not permitted in shops in Australia, when Ruprecht came back in the shop. “I forgot something,” he announced.

  The woman took one look at him, and then walked briskly into my back room.

  I hurried over to Ruprecht and took his arm. “It’s that woman,” I told him. “Quick, she’s just gone into the back room.”

  Ruprecht’s jaw dropped open, but it only took him a moment to recover. He hurried into the back room, followed by the rest of us.

  “Where is she?” he asked us.

  “Look in the toilet,” I said. Thyme hurried down the corridor and then came back. “No sign of her, and that window is too high and small for someone to climb out.”

  I pointed to the ring of keys on the wall. “There’s the back door key.” I hurried over to test the door, but it was still locked. “There’s no way she could have unlocked that door and had time to race back and hang the key back on the wall.”

  “She must have climbed through one of these windows,” Ruprecht said. He tested the two windows either side of the back door and then shook his head. “They’re both locked.”

  “Let’s look in all the cupboards,” I said. The four of us spent the next few minutes looking in all the cupboards, but there was still no sign of her. I even looked upwards, thinking of those horror movies where someone hangs upside down from the ceiling. I shuddered. “Well, either she’s a ghost or a very powerful witch,” I said.

  Ruprecht scratched his head. “I must admit I’m at a loss.”

  “She was scared of you, Ruprecht,” Thyme said.

  Camino chimed in. “That’s right, she said she waited until the wizard had left, and as soon as she saw you come back in, she took off. Why would she be scared of you?”

  “I suspect she’s a very powerful witch,” Ruprecht said slowly. “Only a truly powerful witch could escape a locked room like she did. I wonder why she’s here?”

  We all walked back into the showroom. “She said she wants to stay in Bayberry Creek permanently, and she wanted me to help her,” I told him.

  His eyebrows shot up. “Help her do what?”

  I shrugged. “I assume she was going to tell me, but then you came in and she took off. She knows I’m a Dark Witch, and that Alder’s one, too. She’s already told me that. Do you think we’re in any danger from her?” I asked him.

  Ruprecht’s expression turned solemn.

  Chapter 13

  I hadn’t been able to contact Alder that
afternoon. I tried calling several times, but it went straight to voicemail. I texted him to tell him that Thyme and I were going out to Kristen Woods’ place, but there was no response. That surprised me. Normally, Alder would be on the phone at once, telling me why he thought it was a bad idea.

  As soon as the shop shut, Thyme and I headed straight to Kristen Woods’ little farm on the outskirts of town. “Do we have a plan?” I asked Thyme, but she was too preoccupied with her camera to answer.

  I asked her again, and she said, “No, we’ll just wing it.”

  “Then I’ll leave all the talking to you,” I said dryly.

  Thyme muttered angrily to herself by way of response. I hoped she was talking about the camera.

  I drove down the short driveway to the house, which was not set as far from the road as most out-of-town houses were in this district. I parked, and then turned to admire the house. It was a blue brick beauty. It was too large to be wholly original, so I assumed an extension had been built onto the original homestead. It had been so tastefully done that I could not guess which part was new and which part was old. The surrounding gardens were lovely.

  “Kristen obviously has a green thumb,” Thyme said, “although your roses do look better than hers.”

  “I don’t think that’s any skill on my part,” I told her. “Don’t forget, my grandfather’s in my garden.” The fact that my grandfather was inhabiting my garden still took some getting used to. I supposed some would call it haunting. I spotted Kristen bending over a plant, garden shears in hand, and elbowed Thyme. When she hesitated, I pushed her in front of me.

  Kristen looked surprised to see us, but I knew she wouldn’t turn us away. It was the done thing in the country to be hospitable to unexpected visitors. “Hello, Amelia and Thyme, isn’t it?”

  I nodded, and gave Thyme a little another little shove. “Sorry to intrude,” Thyme said, “but I was wondering if I could make a time to photograph your garden, please? I’m just starting a blog, you see, on Bayberry Creek. It’s going to be a photographic blog, and everyone says your garden is the best one in town.”