Poison My Pretty: A Cozy Witch Mystery

by Amity Allen

  “Follow the money, that’s what I always say,” Mads said, hands on hips as if those were her last words on the subject.

  “You mean who inherits Heather Morgan’s money? I don’t think she had any, at least any that didn’t belong to her husband.”

  Mads shrugged. “Maybe she had a life insurance policy. Anyway, that’s all I got.”

  “Hmm. That is a good idea though. Or maybe she was to inherit some money and someone wanted her out of the way.” I made a note to find out if Heather had any rich relatives.

  “What if he was cheating on her?” Skylar said.

  “I guess that’s always possible . . .” But something inside me doubted it.

  “I can see you’re not into these theories. So what do you think, Poppy, oh wise TV detective?” Mads teased.

  “Well, I think you have to look at who would benefit from Heather’s death.”

  “And who is that?”

  “Well, Dimples Bradshaw won the competition.”

  “And you think it was rigged?”

  “I’m not saying it was rigged, but I’m saying she did benefit by Anna Beth not being able to compete. And who knows what the relationship was between Heather and the Bradshaws? They both live around here. Maybe there was something between them.”

  “I remember Josephine saying that there was something about that email pointing the finger at Tippy about Allessandra’s birth certificate. Some of the moms were blaming it on Tippy, saying she sent it,” Skylar said.

  “All right. I hate to break up all this detective work, but we have some floral business to attend to today,” Mads said.

  “Ugh. You’re no fun,” Skylar griped.

  Mads ignored her. “So, who’s going to bring all these arrangements over to the funeral home?”

  “Are they for Heather Morgan?” I asked.

  Mads nodded.

  “I’ll do it.” I was eager for the opportunity to see Heather’s loved ones again.

  “Great. I don’t think we need to worry about hiring a delivery person anymore, Sky. Poppy wants to do them all,” Mads said.

  “True.” Skylar gave her twin a sidelong glance. “I told you she’d come in handy.”

  “Now, now. Don’t get so excited. I don’t want to do all the deliveries every day, just this one,” I protested.

  “So you mean that when you solve the mystery of who killed Heather Morgan, you’re going to stop making flower deliveries?” Skylar asked.

  “Maybe,” I teased.

  “Sounds about right,” Mads said, then went back to the animation she was creating on her tablet.

  “Anybody want to come with me to the funeral home?” I asked.

  My offer was met with silence.

  I knew Mads would always rather be creating something on her tablet, but there were people at the funeral home, and social butterfly Skylar could rarely pass up an opportunity to see and be seen.

  “C’mon, Skylar,” I begged. “You sure you don’t want to go?”

  She shook her head emphatically. “No way. That place is creepy!”

  I couldn’t argue with her there. “All right, fine. At least help me load the flowers into the van.”

  “I’ve got a ton of arrangements to make,” Skylar said.

  Mads rolled her eyes at her twin. “Fine, but you’re closing up then.”

  Skylar picked up a pair of scissors and floral tape, and smiled sweetly at her sister. “Thank you.”

  Forty-five minutes later, I unloaded the numerous floral stands and funeral sprays through the back of the funeral home, surprised at how much access was given to those in the floral trade. It was like having a backstage pass to one of the most important moments of other people’s lives.

  It wasn’t long before I realized that I’d gone to school with the funeral director’s son, who was now acting as family envoy and showing me where to put the various floral arrangements.

  “Gosh, I never thought, in my wildest dreams, that Poppy Parker would be bringing us flowers for a funeral.”

  Unsure how to respond, I gave him a big grin.

  He kept going. “I mean, I guess I never thought that the girl who ate paste next to me in Mrs. Bailey’s kindergarten class would be a TV star either,” Paul Swann of Swann’s Funeral Home said.

  I laughed, certain I had never really eaten paste in kindergarten, but choosing to be the bigger person by not arguing with him over the matter. I mostly remembered Paul for rolling his earwax into little balls and shooting them at people so it was probably best not to discuss our shared memories of one another.

  “Um, where’s your restroom?” I asked, after we’d unloaded the last of the flowers. Paul pointed me in the right direction, and I made a hasty escape.

  A few minutes later, I emerged with a fresh slash of color adorning my lips and entered the viewing room for the late Heather Morgan, this time as mourner rather than floral director.

  I approached Mr. Morgan and shook his hand. “I’m so sorry for your loss.” He gave me a blank look that told me he had no idea who I was.

  Every day I was back home, I felt less and less memorable.

  Dropping my eyes to the ground, I moved on. I found a seat at the back of the room and settled in for some serious sleuthing.

  After our discussion at The Flower Shoppe, I realized that Mads had a good point about following the money. It seemed likely Mr. Morgan would inherit any money to be gained from Heather’s death, but I didn’t really see how I could ask him about it.

  Then I saw someone who could possibly be lured into such a financial discussion. It would be rude of me to bring up the topic, so I just prayed that I could find an opening to pry.

  Denise Tellerman sat in the corner, talking to an older woman, and when the older lady left, I made a beeline for the seat next to her.

  “Denise,” I took her hand in mine, “I am so sorry about your sister.”

  Denise had a glassy-eyed appearance that told me she might have taken some sort of sedative to help her get through what would be a long afternoon.

  “Thank you,” she managed. “I still can’t believe it. Just last week she was planning the pageant, and now we’re burying her.”

  A tear threatened to squeeze out of the corner of her eye, and I handed her a box of tissues conveniently sitting on the table in front of us.

  “I know. It’s simply awful. Do you have any other family?”

  “No. It was just Heather.” Then as an afterthought, she added, “And Tony.”

  “Yes, I know you guys are close. How’s he holding up?”

  “He’s upset of course. Blames himself.” Denise dabbed at her eyes with the tissue.

  This caught me off guard. “How so?”

  “He seems to feel like if he’d been home he could have done something to stop it from happening.” She shrugged. “I don’t see how.”

  “What do you mean ‘if he’d been home’? Where was he?”

  “He was out of town. Had a last minute business trip to Seattle. He’d only just returned that morning. In fact, I’d just picked him up at the airport and dropped him off at their house when I saw you at the pageant. When Heather . . .” She started to choke with grief.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, handing her another tissue.

  If Denise had been at the airport picking up Tony Morgan that meant that it would have been difficult, if not impossible for him to poison Heather from Seattle or an airplane. It also gave Denise a pretty tight alibi as well. I’d seen her arriving at the convention center in her vehicle the morning of the murder and if she’d been to an airport already she’d probably been in the car for at least two hours, probably more. Our closest two airports were both about an hour away.

  If neither one of them could have killed Heather, I guess grilling Denise about Heather’s finances wasn’t going to get me very far. And then I remembered I’d gotten the distinct impression that Denise’s equestrian business was faltering.

  “Denise, I hope you don’t mi
nd my asking, but did you say you were having some trouble getting riding clients lately?”

  She hiccupped, and I pretended I didn’t hear. Then she straightened her spine and lifted her chin. “Business isn’t what it used to be. With all the phones and devices. Kids just want to stay indoors and stare at a screen.” Glaring at me, she spoke carefully, “So yes, things have slowed down. Why?”

  “Well, I just wondered if maybe I could do something to help. Maybe make a video at the ranch. We could put it on social media, maybe get people thinking about how fun it is to ride, you know?”

  Her face softened. “Oh, Poppy, that’s very kind. I’d like that. Maybe you can come out to the ranch one day and we can talk about it.”

  “I’d like that. I know all this has been quite a shock, and I’m terribly sorry for your loss. My aunt Cricket is making some lasagna for you and Mr. Morgan. I’ll drop it off sometime this week, if that would be okay.”

  “Oh, Poppy, that is so sweet of you. Tell your aunt I appreciate it so much. And I’m glad I had the chance to see you again.”

  Then Denise’s eyes went dark, and I peered over my shoulder to see who or what had caused the reaction.

  Tippy Bradshaw and her husband had just walked in.

  Denise gritted her teeth.

  “Oh, there’s Tippy,” I said, being careful to keep my tone neutral.

  “I can’t believe that woman would show her face here,” Denise growled.

  “Really? I would have thought she and Heather were friends,” I said, baiting my hook.

  “Hmph. Hardly. Tippy hated my sister. Did nothing but cause trouble for her. They’ve had problems for years.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Yes. I heard it was Tippy who sent that email about that little contortionist girl’s birth certificate which caused all the problems at the beginning of the pageant.”

  “No, really?”

  “Yes. The girl’s mother got everyone all mad at Heather over it. They should have been mad at whoever started it. And I think it was Tippy. Some people will do anything to get their child ahead, and apparently it worked for her.”

  “You mean because Dimples won?”

  “Yes. Don’t get me wrong. Dimples is a wonderful child. I’m sure she deserved to win, but too bad her mother had to resort to such underhanded tactics.”

  “I was surprised to see how competitive the pageant world can be. Is the world of horseback riding anything like that?”

  “It’s definitely competitive, but nothing like these pageants.”

  “I see.”

  While we were talking, a few other ladies had come over to speak with Denise, and I saw it as the perfect opportunity to make a getaway. I patted her hand before standing up and offering my seat to a lady who was beginning to wail, “Oh Denise! How could this happen to our girl?”

  That was the question I kept wondering about myself, and from what Officer Goodnight had said, it had been some kind of poison.

  Who had access to Heather’s food and drink that day?

  Unfortunately, the list was rather long. There were scores of people in the room that day, and unless Liz’s cameras had been trained on Heather—which unfortunately they hadn’t been since she’d shut them down—no one had been caught in the act.

  Scores of people had the opportunity to commit the crime, but why . . .

  On TV, the police believed that the perpetrator often made an appearance at the victim’s wake.

  And as I looked around, the only person in the room I recognized from the pageant was Tippy Bradshaw.

  Aunt Cricket agreed to shut down the B&B, at least for a few days. As providence would have it, we only had one guest booked for the rest of the week and Cricket was able to move her to another B&B in the area. Both the customer and the other establishment’s owner were pleased by the arrangement, and it left me and Cricket alone in the creaky old house.

  Cricket had gone to a movie with a friend, and I took the opportunity with her out of the house to work on a special project. I carried one of my hurricane lanterns up to the attic. It was battery-operated and I needed a dependable light source tonight. I’d already charged up my laptop, and even though the Wi-Fi was pretty crummy so far away from the router downstairs, I intended to try out my first spell, and I wanted privacy.

  Tonight, there would be no chance of a guest accidentally interrupting me, or me disturbing anyone’s sleep. With an empty house, I figured I had the time and space to experiment with my powers, whatever they might be.

  Carrying the crate up the stairs was awkward, but once I got it up there, I set it down under the table. Once I surveyed my setup and was satisfied everything was in place, I opened up my laptop and typed in the Northern Lights search engine.

  I’d been researching this for a couple of days. The first thing I learned from Northern Lights was that some people actually sold pet dander. One website for witches was giving it away free as a special. Maybe because they had a lot of cats and had some to spare, I don’t know. But after a few wrong turns, I finally found a spell I wanted to try that might rid my new friend of the unwanted allergen he carried.

  From what I’d been able to find out in my mother’s books, and articles I’d found through the Northern Lights search engine, spells to get over obstacles and rid a body of conflict were best carried out on a Tuesday.

  Unfortunately, today was Saturday, but time was running out for me to be able to perform this particular task so I had to try it tonight anyway.

  They also said I should get in sync with the phase of the moon for my spell to have the best chance of success, but I didn’t have that luxury.

  Instead, the minute Aunt Cricket told me about her plans, I started rounding up the ingredients. Luckily, we had everything on hand. Because Cricket cooked with herbs a lot, we had a stone mortar and pestle, which I intended to use to grind everything up.

  A low growl rose from under the table. “Yeooooow!”

  Hmm. He might not be on board with my plan yet, but it had to be better than whatever gas chamber was planned for him at the shelter.

  “I’m trying to help you,” I told the green eyes that peered up at me from under the table.

  He turned around in a few circles before sitting down on an old towel I’d thrown in the crate before I’d gone to retrieve him from the shelter this afternoon. When he finally settled, he rested with his rear end towards me.

  “Hang on. I’m doing the best that I can.”

  Making sure my attitude was positive, I placed sunflower seeds, cloves, and paprika into the mortar, where I ground it all together. When it was nice and smooshed up, I added a couple of dashes of rose oil and mixed it all together.

  I took a deep breath. I was supposed to bathe the cat with the substance, but since I couldn’t picture him standing still for that, I decided to douse his back with it.

  He must have realized something was afoot, because he turned his soulful green eyes on me. They had the look of a creature who had lived many lives, and suddenly I pictured him back in Pharaoh’s Egypt or early Venice. There was something timeless about the animal.

  I shook my head. That was crazy. All this witchy stuff was putting some fanciful thoughts in my head.

  Just as I was about to try speaking the magic words, I heard the creaking of footsteps coming up the pull-down ladder.

  My heart thumped hard in my chest. I knew there was probably nothing to be afraid, but the fact that we had found a dead body in our house less than a week ago had me on edge.

  I was relieved to see Cricket’s head pop up above the floorboards as she climbed her way into the attic.

  My hand covered my heart. “Oh! Cricket, you scared me.”

  “I’m sorry, honey. What are you doing up here? I just came to see if it was you. These days, can’t be too careful.”

  “Don’t I know it? But it’s just me. What happened to the movie?” My stomach churned and I felt like a teenager who’d been caught with a package of cig
arettes.

  “Velma forgot her glasses. So after we ate dinner, we came on home.”

  Then her eyes landed on the cat in the crate. “What’s that?”

  “Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you about that.”

  “Where’d you get that cat?”

  “Well, it’s kind of a long story. He’s the one who used to belong to Heather Morgan.”

  “Why is he here now?”

  “I thought I would try and see if I could find a spell that could make him hypoallergenic. I mean if I’m going to have powers, I might as well try to find uses for them that would be helpful, right?”

  “That’s a good point. How’s it coming?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I think I may have found something, but if not, I can always take it back to the shelter.”

  Cricket shook her head. “Do what you’ve got to do, Poppy. If worse comes to worse, you can keep him in your room. As long as he doesn’t make you sneeze, it will be fine.”

  “Thanks, Aunt Cricket.” I should have known that she would be okay with it, but I hadn’t wanted to impose.

  “Meow!”

  We both laughed. It was like he’d understood that she’d just said he could stay.

  “You know, you really shouldn’t be climbing that ladder.” I visualized her falling and me having to go see her in the hospital with her in traction.

  “I can still go up and down a ladder. How old do you think I am?”

  “Sorry. I’m just looking out for you.”

  “Well I thank you, honey, but I’m all right. I’m going to bed now. You let me know how this turns out.”

  “Sure thing. Sleep tight.” I watched as her gray head bobbed down the stairs. I’d been so lucky all these years to have her. It made me feel all the guiltier that I’d felt such a loss at never having known my real mother. Cricket had been as good or better than any mother a person could want. I needed to get off my pity pot and focus more on my blessings.

  I turned back to the cat. “Okay, time to get on with it.”

  Opening the browser, I felt like I should have candles all around like we had on our show, and a magic wand for ambiance. But, I had to admit this was the 21st century and everything else was high tech, why not witchcraft? As I read the words aloud, they came out halting. Choppy.