That had seemed like a great idea at the time, but now that Gabe sat here all attractive in his uniform, taking notes about everything she said, nothing about this felt harmless. Davis and Melinda sat across from Emily. Ingrid was next to her. Her apartment’s renovations were almost complete and the large kitchen table was roomy enough to sit the entire coven. The table looked too big for just her, Ingrid and Gabe, Melinda and Davis. Whatever. Too big was better than too small.
Melinda’s eyes were red-rimmed like she’d been crying since she’d heard about Owen’s death. Emily’s thoughts ran wild. And hateful. Oh, please. He was your brother-in-law. Get over yourself, Melinda.
Gabe spoke, pulling Emily out her judgey thoughts. “Emily, thank you for taking the time to clear up some things for me. First, can you explain the exact nature of your relationship to the deceased?”
“He was my husband, but we were separated. We haven’t lived together in over a year.”
“He was a dickhead,” Ingrid said.
Davis cleared his throat.
“I see. What is an amicable split?”
Emily laughed dryly. “No. Not at all. It has been very messy.”
“Due to the dickheadedness,” Ingrid interjected.
“Could you explain the nature of your disagreements?”
She nodded. “Sure. We disagreed about the settling of our properties. We nearly had it settled when my aunt died and left me this building. Then he got greedy. He felt like I should have to buy him out of this building, even though my aunt passed after we separated. She left her bookshop and the building to me.”
“I see,” Gabe said. Ingrid snorted, and then Gabe asked, “Who inherits from Owen? And what kind of income does the shop provide?”
“Whoa,” Ingrid said. “It doesn’t matter, because Emily and I are stupid rich.”
Gabe raised an eyebrow. “But that’s mostly your money, isn’t it?”
“A non-issue. What’s mine is hers and vice versa. We played poker for the top floor of this place. We’re equals.”
“Still, who? Who inherits?”
“Come on,” Davis interjected, “Emily can’t know that. Owen wasn’t one to leave a will hanging after being separated for a year. She’s got her income from the mail order magic supplies, the rent, and the future income from the book store. She wouldn’t have killed Owen for money.”
“I still need to have a general idea of your wealth, Em. I need to be able to show my superiors that I’ve taken all the steps.”
Emily looked at Ingrid questioningly, unsure how to answer.
Ingrid shrugged. “It doesn’t make much money at all. But Emily is rich. She jokes about mooching, but she’s on all of my accounts. Full access, etcetera. We send out mail-order herbs and potions to our witchy customers, but that essentially only pays for the inventory plus a little more. The bookstore portion was losing money since it hasn’t been running since before Danna died.
“But,” Ingrid said each word as if they were partially deaf, “it does not matter. We are so rich that a loss every year helps me on my taxes. Besides, dickhead was a lawyer. He must’ve updated his will. Emily isn’t going to get jack from him.”
Emily nodded and said, “I’m sure he did update his will. He was anal and controlling in all things. Davis? You’re his executor right?”
The sheriff muttered under his breath. “…seems like it might be a conflict of interest, don’t you think?”
Ingrid nodded, but Davis ignored them as if he hadn’t heard the question.
Gabe looked at Emily and then to Davis. “Do you know if Emily stood to inherit anything from Owen?”
Davis spoke up finally, his blue eyes sharp and aware. “I suppose I do. And I suppose it could be considered a conflict of interest, but neither one of us did this…so I’m not worried if you aren’t. You okay with it, Em?”
Emily shrugged her shoulders. “I guess.”
Davis interrupted, “It does make your life a lot simpler, Em, now that you are a widow. I mean, you aren’t set to receive an inheritance, but as his legal wife you are entitled to anything that isn’t specified in his will. Your fight with this building will be over, for example.
Davis was a decent enough guy. His dark hair and tall, muscular frame made him popular among women, but Emily always thought he was a little too flirty for a married man. Melinda never seemed to mind, though, or even notice, so Emily stayed out of it. No, she had nothing to worry about with Davis. He’d be intent on finding his brother’s killer. And he knew Emily. He would know she wasn’t capable of something like this. Though why he brought up her benefiting from the building, she didn’t know. She wanted to give him a good curb stomp for that. The memory of her stabbing Owen in the face with chopsticks passed through her mind, and she laughed softly at the memory. That had been pretty satisfying.
“Okay, if you’re sure.” Gabe raised his eyebrows in reaction to Emily’s laughter but continued with his questions. “The coroner puts time of death at between 9pm and 2am, give or take a bit. Emily, can you tell me where you were early this morning.”
She nodded. “Yep. At home. Asleep on my couch. Alone.”
“Can anyone vouch—”
“For my whereabouts? No. Like I said, I was alone on my couch. Last time I looked at the clock, it was around 9:30pm. I was waiting to hear back from Ingrid to see if she would need my help with her impulse purchases.” Emily didn’t mention her sleep-walking incident and needed to change the subject before she looked as guilty as she felt. She turned to look at Davis, “Maybe if Owen had been home in his own bed instead of snooping around my building he’d still be alive.”
She didn’t try to hide the ice in her voice. Owen dying before the divorce proceedings were finished was super inconvenient. Now that he was dead, things were likely to be tied up even longer.
Melinda let out a sob. “How could you be so cruel, Emily? You weren’t together, but that doesn’t mean you have to be hateful.”
Emily sighed. “Look, I’m sorry he’s dead, all right? Honestly, it makes things more difficult for me in some ways that he’s dead, but I didn’t like him. I’m not sorry that I’m not going to have to deal with him anymore. It’s no secret. He was an ass, especially these last few months.”
Davis interrupted, “Well getting the fight over will be a relief for all of us though,” Davis took a moment to fight emotions and added, “not that losing Owen was. . .”
“And that will be nice, Davis. I’ll admit that I’ll be happy to move on with this part of my life. But I wouldn’t kill anyone—not even Owen—for a building.”
By this time, Melinda had broken into incoherent sobs, and Davis turned his attention to his wife. “Hush, now, Melinda. It’ll be fine.” He patted her hand, but Emily could see that he wasn’t comforting her. Melinda seemed awfully upset about her brother-in-law’s demise. They hadn’t exactly been close. Davis and Owen had been, but Emily had always gotten the sense that Melinda was irritated by Owen.
Sheriff Gabe chimed in again. “Davis and Melinda, I’d like to ask each of a few questions also. Could you each tell me where you were at the time of the murder, early this morning?”
Melinda answered first, talking through shiny tears and a shaky voice, “I was at home in the city. We live just north of Seattle in Lynnwood. My kids were at their grandparents, and Davis was out of town on business, so there is nobody to verify that.”
Davis spoke next. “As my wife mentioned, I was out of town on business. I can give you the name of the hotel I was staying if that would help.”
“Sure.”
Davis gave the details to the officer and then asked a question. “Look, Gabe, I know you have to rule out the family in a situation like this, but I think we can all agree,” he looked pointedly at Melinda and Emily, “that none of us wanted Owen dead. What other leads do you have?”
The sheriff looked around the room, asking them all, “Do any of you know of someone that might have wanted Owen dead?”
“No,” said Davis.
“No,” said Melinda.
“Only anyone who’s ever had to do business with him,” Emily exclaimed, earning disapproving looks from both Davis and Melinda. Emily continued. “Look, I’m telling you that Owen was a selfish, arrogant bastard. Anyone who saw his bad side would be irritated with him. You should check with his secretary. She may be able to tell you more about what clients he’d been dealing with lately. I was out of that loop a long time ago. You should probably look into whoever he was sleeping with. It wouldn’t be the first time he interfered with someone’s marriage. Probably a jealous ex-lover or a current lover’s husband. But good luck tracking down that many people.”
Emily looked pointedly at Davis and shrugged. “I know he was your brother, but the man got around.”
Sheriff Gabe continued with his next question, probably saving them all from family brawl. Emily was in no mood to defend the memory of a bastard who had made her life hell.
“Do you have any idea why he was in town, Emily?”
“We weren’t friendly, like I said, and he usually communicated with me through our attorneys. He was supposed to come later today with an appraiser to have the building valued.”
“Well, thank you all for your time. I’ll be in touch.” He shook everyone’s hand in turn and then let himself out the front door of her apartment.
5
Thursday Evening
Ingrid watched the sheriff from her balcony. She felt like a voyeur, but honestly, when the world gave you such a view, who was she to not savor it? She was stupid tired. They’d been up super late. Gabe was far, far handsomer than Harrison had been.
It was late the day after they’d found the body, and Ingrid had spent much of it doing actual, brain-crunching research while Emily had been interrogated. It was late now, and they caught the sight of the sheriff mostly because of the lights on the streets.
“Enjoying your sheriff?” Emily’s voice pulled Ingrid’s attention, but she didn’t look away from the man she wanted.
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, I am.”
Ingrid grinned at her friend. They leaned forward together to gaze as the sheriff leaned down to scratch the ears of the beagle across the street before heading into Kimmie’s nail place.
“I’m going to need you to stop lusting after him when I make him my own.” Ingrid took a long sip of her coffee. They were sitting around the table she’d ordered especially for her balcony. It was from a Friday Harbor artist, and it was all pretty and original and to her specifications. There was a mermaid in the tile on the top. It made her happy. But not as happy as looking at Sheriff Hotpants and his…hot pants.
“I’ll probably be in jail then.”
Ingrid looked at Emily for real then, noticing the black circles under her eyes and the tense set to her shoulders.
“Em, my dove, are you whining? Because if you’re whining, we need some wine. Or vodka. Hey, we’re witches. We’ll get you out of this, right? Oh, yeah! Hazel said we should clear your aura.”
“Do you know how to do that?”
Ingrid shook her head. “We can Google it right? Or maybe find a ‘How To’ in that basement downstairs?”
Emily shrugged.
“Listen,” Ingrid said. “We might have no idea who did this or how to stop them or whatever. But let’s be real, we’re not entirely helpless. And honestly…isn’t it sort of convenient that he’s dead?”
At Emily’s conflicted look, Ingrid said, “Hear me out, wench! We didn’t kill him. So we avoided that whole karma’s a ho-bag thing. So, first we shake this murder charge, clean our aura in Barbados, and then, hey…no more need to fight out the divorce. You’re a widow. It’s so much better when they’re dead.”
“But I’ll be arrested first and people will always wonder and…”
“And you won’t be in jail. We’ll move to Paris or Nice or Bath, and we’ll live lives of luxury and laziness there if they get to be evil judgey here.”
“We were going to be lazy here.” There was a bit of a sniff to Emily’s voice, but it was the whine of someone who was whining on purpose.
“Oh my goodness, I’ll slap you.” Ingrid said, opening the balcony door to find the vodka in the freezer. “I only have fruit punch, so we can have fruit punch and vodka or just vodka straight.”
“Ew,” Emily said.
“Vodka and coffee? Is that a thing? Let’s make it a thing.”
“I’ll try it since it’s your coffee, but I don’t think it’s a thing. I think you add things like amaretto to coffee.”
“Now you’re just being picky. I’m not saying that dickhead dying isn’t a huge all-around inconvenience and it could ruin my plans for making the sheriff my baby daddy, but really” –Ingrid tossed Emily a mocking glance— “we can be lazy anywhere. And it’s not like getting rid of dickhead wasn’t the plan. We didn’t kill him, so we aren’t really responsible. Are we cold if we just let it slide off of us? Especially, and this is the important part, because we didn’t do it.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Emily said, “but that makes us pretty cold witches.”
“Which is why you should quit pouting. I only have so much fake nicery in me. So let’s go burn some herbs or whatever. I swear, you’re probably PMSing.”
“I am,” Emily groaned. “I’m under the threat of arrest, on my period, and dealing with the loss of my ex-husband.” She flicked a tear from the corner of her dry eye and took the bottle of vodka back to the freezer.
Ingrid took a long look at her, walked back to her kitchen and grabbed a bottle of dessert wine. “If you’re PMSing, we need to be drunk while we burn things. And if you’re PMSing, we need chocolate wine.”
“When this is over, we’re stress shopping, and you have to buy me shoes,” Emily said as she grabbed two wine glasses. She picked up a witchcraft book that Hazel had pressed on them and began flipping through it.
“Deal,” Ingrid replied. “But I think you should know my stress shopping has gotten out of hand. I found myself considering a Wii this morning, so I could play Super Mario Brothers again. So it’s good of you to indulge me and my need to shop. Plus, we’re both rich. You have that credit card. Use it like a good dove.”
“I saw the espresso makers, so yeah, I picked up on the whole out-of-hand stress shopping. Also, just because you gave me your credit card doesn’t make me rich. It makes me a mooch, but I am pretty okay with that.”
“What? We needed an espresso machine,” Ingrid said, ignoring the mooch comment.
“And you bought three.”
“One for you, one for me, one for the shop. You can thank me later.”
“Okay,” Emily said, putting the book down for Ingrid to see. “I think I’ve found a spell. It says we have to burn sage, say some stuff, and it’d be better if we were naked under the full moon.”
“Is there a full moon?”
“I don’t know.”
Neither bothered to even look out the window. They were going to do the spell regardless. They made their way to Ingrid’s kitchen since she actually had food. Sort of. So far, Emily had only bought coffee, bacon, and apples. Ingrid went shopping and randomly threw things into her cart. She had things like orange vinegar and goat cheese but no bread.
“It’s a crescent moon.” Emily looked up from her phone.
Ingrid’s gaze said she didn’t believe Emily.
“I downloaded an app for the moon.”
“When?”
“Just a second ago.”
“Okay then,” Ingrid said. “If you start knowing things like that, the next thing you’d expect is that I know them, too, and I have no intention of looking at the stars for anything that means I have to care.”
She filled their wine glasses and pulled a plastic can of herbs from the cupboard. “Will that do? We don’t have to wait for a full moon, right?”
“I don’t know.” Emily took her glass.
“Can we just be i
n our underwear? What if we’re naked under robes? There’s a chill in the air. I don’t want a runny nose when I romance the sheriff.”
“Please, whore,” Emily said. “I don’t know.”
“Should we call Hazel?”
“No,” Emily said distinctly. “She has this way of telling me how to do something while not telling me that I should know already, but saying it silently or psychically or…you know.”
“Yeah,” Ingrid agreed. “She’s a cruel, cold dove. Maybe we could call that pretty one with the hair.”
“We’d probably have to know her name.”
“Oh, yeah…” Ingrid shrugged and kicked off her heeled sandals.
“Are we really getting naked?” Emily sounded disgusted at the thought. Ingrid agreed completely. They lived on an island. There was a constant ocean breeze, and it was night. The goosebumps would be out of hand.
She looked her friend over and down at her fluffy robe covering flannel, cupcake pajamas. “At least our feet should be naked.”
Emily took another sip of her wine and then kicked off her own shoes.
“Balcony?” Ingrid asked as she lifted the wine bottle.
“Rooftop garden,” Emily said, and Ingrid nodded, opening one of her double front doors and leaving it hanging open as she returned for the plastic canister of sage that she had left on the counter.
They hadn’t had gardeners in and neither of them actually wanted to do any of the work themselves, so the garden was mostly empty plant containers they’d had the carpenter build, some outdoor furniture and two hammocks that they’d set up under a gazebo.
Emily kicked aside some debris and turned to face Ingrid. “What do you think? Throw burning sage over my shoulder and think happy thoughts?”
Ingrid shrugged, settling into one of the lounge chairs.
“We could make a circle of sage, I could get in it, and then we could set it on fire.”
Inconvenient Murder: An Inept Witches Mystery Page 4
