Witch Pie: A Witch Squad Holiday Special (A Witch Squad Cozy Mystery Book 4)

by M. Z. Andrews

I looked up at her. “Now?”

  She nodded vigorously. “Yeah, now. I know you and Alba want to chase down Tony today, and the florist doesn’t open for another forty-five minutes. We could all run down to Habernackle’s quick and then you and Alba can go check out the hospital and the florist.”

  Surprisingly Alba stood up and picked up her tray. “Yeah, let’s do it. It’s better than sitting around here waiting for the dumb store to open. It’ll keep my mind occupied. Let’s go.”

  My mother hadn’t been expecting us when we came breezing through the front door at Habernackle’s. She was scurrying around like a crazy woman, taking orders and busing tables. The dining area was full of patrons, and there were four men sitting at the counter with varying shades of graying hair.

  As I rounded the bar, I recognized one of them immediately. “Sergeant Bradshaw!”

  “Mercy, and the rest of my favorite amateur sleuths! How have you ladies been?” he asked kindly, raising his coffee cup to me.

  The Witch Squad and I had played an instrumental role in saving his daughter, Elena, from being killed, and we’d solved his daughter Harper’s murder. As a thank you, he’d bought the foreclosed building and given it to my brother and me. Mom and Reign had done the leg work and recently turned the building into a thriving bed & breakfast and restaurant.

  “We’ve been good. Busy as usual,” I said. “Can I get you another cup of coffee?”

  “Sure,” he said, then twisted around in his seat to watch Mom scurrying around. “Looks like your mother is kind of busy today.”

  I nodded, lifting my eyes to see her greeting another couple entering the restaurant. I picked the pot of coffee up off of the hot plate and filled his cup. “How about another round for your friends too?”

  He nodded and signaled to move it on down the line as the rest of the men held out their cups.

  “So these are your friends, huh? The illustrious coffee club?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes. This is the coffee club. Every morning, like clockwork, this is where you’ll find us,” he said proudly.

  “Nice, well, I’m glad we could keep the doors open,” I said.

  He nodded. “You and me both. I love this place! And I love what your brother did with the place. Such a nice remodel.”

  “Yeah, he did a great job,” I agreed. Mom joined me behind the counter and grabbed the pot of coffee from me.

  “Hello girls, what are you doing here? I’m a little too busy for a visit,” she said.

  “Sweets needs some help from you,” I whispered to her so Sergeant Bradshaw wouldn’t overhear. “She needs to summon her grandmother’s ghost.”

  My mom laughed. “Oh, no big deal, let me get right on that,” she jested. “Mercy, I’m kind of busy here. Now’s really not the time. Come back in an hour or two. Maybe things will be slower then.”

  Sweets gave my mother a broad smile. “And then you’ll help me?”

  Mom breezed through the swinging kitchen doors and came back out seconds later with two plates of food. “I’ll do my best!”

  “Awesome, well, do you need some help? I don’t have anything going on right now. Mercy and Alba have to go run some errands, but I could stay and help you until you get caught up,” Sweets offered.

  My mother let out an appreciative sigh. “Oh, Sweets! That’s so nice of you. Yes! I could totally use a hand. Those people who just came in need two cups of coffee and their order taken. Do you mind?”

  Sweets shook her head. “No! Not at all!”

  Mom pointed at a hook filled with aprons hanging behind the counter. “Grab an apron.”

  “Aunt Linda, can Holly and I help too?” Jax asked.

  Holly looked at Jax like she was crazy. “Who said anything about helping?” Holly asked, looking down at her perfectly polished nails. “I just got these done!”

  “Well, you won’t break a nail pouring coffee,” my mother said, handing her the pot of coffee. “Here. Just walk around and ask everyone if they need a refill. You can start with those good-looking men in the corner.”

  Mom pointed to three ruggedly handsome men who looked like construction workers. Holly’s eyes lit up excitedly. That’s all it took for Holly to get onboard. She had an apron on before Alba and I had even begun to head for the door. “Ok, girls. Alba and I will be back in an hour or two.”

  Jax waved at us as we walked out the front door. “Good luck!”

  6

  Alba and I drove clear out to the east edge of Aspen Falls to Rose Garden, a kitschy little floral shop that smelled like roses on steroids upon entering. We were greeted by a tall, slender woman with silver hair in a tight bun on top of her head.

  “May I help you?” she asked, pulling her glasses off of her face and letting them dangle around her neck by a long beaded chain.

  “We’re hoping you can,” I said. “We’re looking for a missing person.”

  The woman regarded me with interest. “Well, this is a floral shop, dear. I don’t have any missing people in the back.” She began moving towards the center of her shop as if that would be the end of that.

  “You don’t understand,” I began.

  Alba cut me off. “It’s my husband. He’s missing. He had a bouquet of flowers in the front seat of his car, and they came from here. We thought maybe you’d seen him before he disappeared.”

  The woman stopped moving and gave Alba a sympathetic smile. “How long ago would’ve he been in?” she asked, putting her glasses back on and moving towards her computer.

  “November first probably. Or maybe the second,” Alba said, moving down the counter towards the woman who was looking at her computer.

  “What’s your husband’s name, dear?” she asked, scrolling through her records.

  “Tony Sanchez,” Alba said. “Or Anthony maybe?”

  “Hmmm. Would have he paid with a credit card or with cash?”

  “Cash probably,” said Alba. “Tony pays for almost everything with cash.”

  The woman stopped scrolling and looked at Alba sadly. “Well, that won’t help us. What does your husband look like?”

  Alba held a hand up over her head. “He’s a big guy. 6’4 about 230 pounds. Brown haired Hispanic man with brown eyes.”

  That turned a light on in the woman’s mind. She smiled at Alba. “Yeah! Big guy. He was coming to town to surprise his wife!”

  Alba’s eyes lit up. “You remember him?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, it was sweet. He told me his wife went to college in Aspen Falls, and that he hadn’t seen her since she left in September. He was coming to surprise her. That was you, huh? What a sweet husband you have!”

  Alba’s eyes welled up with tears again. She swallowed hard and tried to force them to disappear. She didn’t want to show me that she was getting emotional. “Yeah, that’s me,” she whispered.

  “Do you remember what day you saw him?” I asked. “We know he left New Jersey on the first, but we don’t know how long it took him to get here.”

  The woman tilted her head to the side and patted her bun. “Hmm. The first or second? That would have been the day after Halloween. Oh! Yes! It was the first! I remember because I went to a Halloween party in town, at that new bed & breakfast – Habernackle’s. It was a really late night, and I was so tired that next day that I was just about to close down early and then in walks your husband!”

  I smiled at her. “Ma’am, did Tony say anything to you at all? About his plan? Was he getting a hotel room or heading right to see her? He never made it to her, and we’ve found his car, but he’s missing,” I explained.

  Her eyebrows furrowed, forming a deep V between her eyes. “I’m sorry ladies, but he didn’t tell me anything that would be helpful.”

  Alba looked down at her feet and gave a quiet little nod.

  I put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Alba. We’ll find him,” I whispered. I looked up at the woman. “Thank you for your help.”

  She smiled kindly. “The only thing I can tell you is
that your husband loves you very much. He’s a quiet man, and he didn’t say it. But I saw it in his eyes. He was very excited to be coming to see you.”

  A slow smile spread across Alba’s face. “Thank you,” she said to the woman.

  The woman nodded. “You’re welcome. I hope you find your husband.”

  “I do too,” she said quietly.

  The next stop was the Aspen Falls Medical Center. Entering through the sliding glass doors, we headed straight for the front desk. A young nurse wearing blue scrubs was seated in front of a computer.

  “Hello, may I help you?” she asked cheerfully.

  “How do we find out if a patient was seen here?” Alba asked her.

  “Are you family?”

  Alba nodded. “Yes, I’m his wife.”

  “Oh! Well, then, what’s his name?” she asked.

  “Anthony Sanchez,” said Alba. “He would have come in on the evening of November 1st.”

  The woman looked through her records. “Hmm. I don’t have anyone coming in by that name in November at all. Would he have come in under a different name?”

  “Tony Sanchez?” Alba suggested.

  The woman shook her head. “I did a search for Sanchez. Nothing came up. What would he have been seen for?”

  “We believe that he hit his head on the windshield of his car. We found his car, which has been in an accident, but he’s missing.”

  That information seemed to surprise the woman. “Well, then, you’d definitely think he would have been seen here, wouldn’t you? Can you give me a minute? I can find out who was working that night. Perhaps they will remember someone fitting his description.”

  I smiled at the woman. “Thank you. We’d really appreciate that.”

  Once she’d left, Alba turned around and leaned against the counter. She put a hand over her eyes. “You and the girls told me to call Tony that night,” she said quietly. “If only I’d called him. If only I hadn’t been so stubborn. We would have probably found him by now. This is all my fault.”

  I put my hands on her shoulders and shook her gently. “Alba. Now is not the time to go all ‘this is my fault’ on me. We all have moments we wish we could re-do. I’ve had my fair share of those, but there’s nothing that can be done now. All we can do is move forward and try to find Tony! You need to stay strong. We’re going to find him. Holly saw him! He’s alive, and he’s ok.”

  Alba nodded, trying hard to hold it together.

  We waited for another five minutes before finally, the young nurse returned with a distinguished looking black gentleman in a white doctor’s coat. “Hello. I’m Dr. Hamley. I understand you’re looking for a missing person?”

  “Yes, my husband,” Alba answered.

  “I was the doctor working the ER the night you were asking about. Can you tell me a little bit more about your husband?”

  “His name is Anthony Sanchez – he goes by Tony. He’s a big guy. 6’4” and 230 pounds. He’s twenty-four and Hispanic. He has dark brown hair and brown eyes. We believe his head hit the windshield of his car. He was in an accident. We found his car, and his ID was in it, but he wasn’t. No one has seen him or heard from him since the accident.”

  Dr. Hamley nodded. “I remember a man fitting that description vividly. A man brought him in. He said he saw him wandering around on the side of the road with a bleeding head. He picked him up and gave him a ride to the hospital. It was a good thing he was brought in. He had a traumatic brain injury. We did perform surgery to remove a hematoma.”

  Our jaws dropped.

  “Oh my god,” Alba gasped. “Is he alright?”

  Dr. Hamley nodded patiently. “He’s fine. Aside from the head injury, he didn’t have any other serious injuries. Now, this is all a bit concerning. I’m quite confident we’re dealing with the same person. The man that came in fits your description perfectly, and he didn’t have any identification on him. The odd part of this story is, when he finally woke up, he didn’t say his name was Tony.”

  Alba looked confused. “What do you mean?”

  “He told us his name was Arthur. I have his name in my files as Arthur Maxwell.”

  “Arthur Maxwell?” I asked, looking at Alba. “Who is Arthur Maxwell?”

  Alba shook her head with confusion. “I have no idea! This is crazy. Why would my husband think his name was Arthur Maxwell?”

  Dr. Hamley peered at us closer. “Does he have a family member or a friend by that name? Perhaps he just got confused, and that was the name he remembered.”

  “No, I don’t know anyone by that name. I have no idea why he thought that was his name!” Alba said nervously holding her stomach. She spun around on her heel, bending at the waist. “I feel sick.”

  “Maybe you should sit down,” I suggested as I tried to lead Alba towards the chairs in the waiting area just off from the reception desk.

  She shook her head and held a hand out to stop me. “No. I’ll be ok. I need to find Tony. Dr. Hamley, where is he now?” Alba asked, panicked. “I need to see my husband.”

  Dr. Hamley shook his head. “He was released.” Dr. Hamley looked down at the computer screen and punched in a few keys. “Several days ago.”

  Alba threw her head back. “He was released? You let a man with a head injury who didn’t know who he was out?”

  “He was doing fine, and he did know who he was. He told us he was Arthur Maxwell. We had no reason to doubt him! But it is concerning that he was having memory problems when he left. I’d like to see him again.”

  “Are you sure that it was him?” Alba asked, her hands trembled as she looked around the room nervously. “M – maybe it wasn’t Tony. Maybe it was someone else?”

  Dr. Hamley pursed his lips. “I suppose we can’t rule that out. But Aspen Falls isn’t a large community. We don’t get very many people putting their heads through windshields. But I’d be happy to look at a photograph?”

  Alba nodded and pulled her phone out of her pocket. She opened the photo gallery and scrolled through photographs until she found one of Tony with a half grin on his face. She smiled at him for a moment before sharing the picture with Dr. Hamley. “This is Tony,” she said quietly.

  Dr. Hamley took the phone from her and looked down at the picture. He nodded and then handed it back to her. “That was the man that was here. I’m sure of it. I’m very sorry.”

  Alba nodded and looked down at her hands. I squeezed her arm.

  “Well, his car is sitting in the Aspen Falls impound lot. Where would he even go?” she finally asked.

  “His grandmother picked him up,” Dr. Hamley answered with surprise.

  Alba’s eyes widened. “His grandmother? Tony doesn’t have any living grandparents. And he certainly doesn’t have any family in Aspen Falls. What are you talking about?” she demanded

  Dr. Hamley appeared stunned. “There was a woman here. The woman visited him every day. He called her grandma. She brought muffins and cookies for the nurses and the doctors. She was a lovely woman.”

  Alba covered her head with her hands. The information she was hearing was almost too much to handle. She paced the room.

  “Dr. Hamley, what was the woman’s name?” I asked.

  Dr. Hamley shook his head. “I couldn’t honestly tell you. I don’t recall her ever saying her first name. I think many of the nurses were just calling her Grandma Maxwell.”

  “Was Grandma Maxwell her name? Is that where he got the name Maxwell?” Alba asked.

  He threw his hands up, shaking his head sorrowfully. “I really don’t know. I’m very sorry.”

  “But you’d have to have her name on record, wouldn’t you? She couldn’t just take a patient home without like signing him out or something, right?” I asked.

  Dr. Hamley shook his head. “Arthur was completely lucid. He signed himself out. I’m very sorry. We didn’t see any reason that he shouldn’t go home. He was physically well enough to go home.”

  Alba nodded blankly. There was nothing else we cou
ld say. Tony was gone. And he didn’t know who he was.

  I shook Dr. Hamley’s hand. “Thank you, Doctor. We appreciate your help.”

  He nodded. “If there’s anything else I can do to help, don’t hesitate to ask. And when you find him, I think he should be seen again. If he’s dealing with memory issues, we need him back in here, ASAP.”

  7

  “So he doesn’t know who he is?” Holly asked, stunned.

  I nodded and grabbed the pot that Sweets handed me, dried it and passed it on to Jax who put it on the large stainless steel rack next to the back door. “He thinks he’s someone named Arthur Maxwell.”

  Jax’s eyes widened. “Who is Arthur Maxwell?”

  “How would I know?” I asked.

  “Well, how are we going to find him then?” Jax asked.

  “I don’t know. Alba’s on the phone with Detective Whitman in the other room. Maybe he’ll have some good ideas about what to do next,” I told her. I turned around and looked at Sweets, who was busily washing dishes in the oversized sink at Habernackle’s. “Did you and my mom figure out if she can help you?”

  Sweets shook her head. “She said once the dishes were done, we could talk.”

  “Nice,” I said with a laugh. My mother was nothing if not wise. She knew exactly how to get a few chores done.

  As Sweets finished rinsing her last plate and handed it to me, my mother came breezing through the swinging doors into the kitchen. “Are we done?”

  “Almost,” I said. I dried the plate and handed it to Jax, flinging the towel over my shoulder. “There, done!”

  “Good. I have about an hour before I need to start prepping for a lunch rush,” she said, looking down at her watch.

  “Where’s Reign?” I asked, looking around.

  “He had to run out for more bread. Can you believe we ran out? Who knew this place would be so busy!” Mom exclaimed.

  Sweets dried her hands and then stood in front of my mother. “Ok. Now what?”

  My mom looked at her and sucked in a deep breath. “Now, you need to explain to me what’s going on.”