In other words, I was still in big trouble.
When I arrived on Main Street I saw that the salon hadn’t opened yet, so I decided to go and see Liam while I waited. Technically his shop wasn’t open either, but I knew he was always ready to welcome his friends.
“Hi there,” said Liam as I walked into the Twinkle.
“Morning,” I said.
“What’s with the hat?” he asked. “Don’t get me wrong, you look fabulous, I just don’t usually see you wearing one,” he explained.
I pulled the curtain over the big front window, causing him to raise his eyebrows. Then I pulled my hat off. He gasped, putting his fingers over his mouth to stifle the sound. “Oh, no,” he said.
“Oh, yes,” I said.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
“I know,” I said.
And he didn’t even know about Jasper.
“I’m sure there’s something you can do,” he said.
“I’m going to try, but first I’m going to give her a piece of my mind,” I said.
“What do you think happened?” Liam asked.
“I don’t know, copper in the water?” I offered. Just in case anyone came into the store, I pulled the hat back over my hair. Now I just looked a little silly instead of totally ridiculous.
“Are you going to tell her what she did?” Liam wondered.
“Yes,” I said. “She needs to know that she can’t ruin people’s dates like this.”
“Date?” Liam asked.
“Day, I mean day,” my face burned.
“Evidenced by the fact that you’re the only one with green hair, and no one else is wearing a hat,” Liam acknowledged.
I handed him the coffee I had brought him. “I wanted to help you celebrate being finished with the construction. I only wish it had worked out better for me,” I said, smiling ruefully.
“Why, thank you very much,” Liam laughed as he took my offering. “She came over last night with that, by the way.”
He pointed toward the counter, where the biggest fruit basket I had ever seen was resting. Besides the fruit, an ample supply of chocolate squares and cheese rounded out the treat.
“For my trouble,” he said. “It just begins to make up for it, though I guess it depends on how good the cheeses are.”
“Isn’t all cheese divine?” I pointed out.
“True,” he said.
Liam was about to say something else, but he never got the chance.
Suddenly, there came a massive crash from the direction of Liam and Miss Violetta’s shared wall. The first thunderous noise was quickly followed by a high-pitched second round, the sound of a woman screaming.
Liam and I didn’t hesitate. I started to dash for the front door, but Liam motioned me to come to the back and through the alley, which was the quickest way to get to Miss Violetta’s.
Whatever she had done to my hair, she was clearly in some kind of trouble now.
We rushed into the back of the salon and found most of the place bright and cheery after all of Miss Violetta’s hard work. But in front of the proprietress was a sight that didn’t match the fresh decor.
Miss Violetta was standing in the back of her shop with a hammer in her hand. She turned to look at us with wide, shocked eyes; before we were even through the door I could see her trembling. Her beautiful makeup was smeared as if she had started to cry and not realized it. But that wasn’t the most shocking thing in the room.
In front of the salon owner’s feet, sharply etched against the bright wood floor, was a scattering of bones.
“I . . . What?” Miss Violetta could barely get the words out, she was trembling so hard.
Liam let out a squeak and stumbled to a halt. The wall had a gaping hole in it. We could see plaster and old bricks and something that looked an awful lot like a human skull.
“I told her over and over to stop it, but she didn’t listen, said a furious ghost. “Now look where she’s gotten us.” Then the ghost plopped down in the salon chair and rolled her eyes.
“It’s going to be a long day,” Liam sighed.
Chapter Five
Liam pulled out his phone to call the police, though I thought he was rather slow and languid about it.
“That’s a skeleton,” he said when I gave him an impatient look. “Another ten minutes isn’t going to change anything. It’s not as if the murderer is in the midst of getting away.”
I went over to the ghost, surreptitiously motioning for her to come out back with me. We didn’t have much time before Detective Cutter arrived and we were thrown out. In fact, he was going to be annoyed that we were there before him regardless.
“I cann-n-nt believe that was in my w-w-w-all,” Miss Violetta wailed into Liam’s shoulder. My friend wasn’t much of a hugger; his arms barely looked like they worked that way, and his face reinforced the impression. I smiled as I followed the ghost out back.
“Can you believe her?” the ghost steamed once we were outside. She looked like she might be eighteen and she was dressed in clothes my grandmother might have worn, and she wore glasses. As Liam had pointed out, she’d clearly been dead for a while.
“She didn’t know you were there,” I replied.
“I told her to stop,” the ghost argued. “No one listens to me. I’ve been in that wall forever. SO boring.”
“What happened?” I asked her.
The ghost scrunched up her face. “Who are you, anyway? Why are you asking and why can you see me when no one else can?”
“My name is Lemmi,” I introduced myself. “I’m the Witch of Mintwood, so I can see ghosts. My grandmother was the Witch before me.”
“Evenlyn? No way! She was such a kook! All the kids made fun of her,” the girl giggled. “Until I became a ghost I thought her whole witch thing was a joke.”
I glared at her, trying to tell her with my eyes that it was NOT cool to make fun of my grandmother.
“What? She was! But anyhow, I don’t care about that. This situation is ridiculous! I didn’t want to be a ghost stuck in a wall, and then I was finally warming to the idea and that woman started hacking away. By the way, that hair color is to die for. It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. I wish that sort of thing had been allowed in my day.” She shook her head and looked wistfully around.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Jackie Morris,” she said dramatically. Her eyes searched my face. Clearly she had expected her announcement to have more of an impact than it had, but all I did was blink in confusion. The name didn’t ring any bells.
“You don’t remember me?” She stuck out her lower lip in a pout.
“Did we know each other?” I asked, trying to understand. She wasn’t dressed as if we’d gone to high school in the same decade, or even the same century.
“I thought you might have heard of me,” she explained. “I went missing, because obviously. I mean, they didn’t know I was dead. It was the talk of the town. I suppose maybe it was before your time. I was a very big deal.” She squinted at me again as if I would suddenly remember, but I didn’t. My mind was a total blank.
“I’m sure it was a big story,” I said, mentally telling myself that Evenlyn would have remembered. And then I remembered how happy Paws would be that we had finally stumbled on another mystery. It already seemed like it was going to be quite the story.
“How did you end up in the wall?” I said.
“No idea,” said Jackie. “I don’t know who killed me, either. One minute I was standing there and the next minute someone was hitting me over the back of the head with something I couldn’t make out. Then I was dead. Good story, I know.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. This was the first time a ghost had recounted in such detail what had happened to her, and sympathy seemed like the right response.
Jackie shrugged. “I didn’t mind as much as I thought I would until I realized I was stuck in the wall. Then I was kind of upset about it.”
“I’ll bet,�
� I said. “What was in that storefront when you were alive?”
“Nothing,” said Jackie. “The barbershop had just closed, and my friends and I liked to sneak in there from time to time, even though we weren’t supposed to.”
“The barbershop having just closed will at least give me a date,” I said.
“So will looking up my name,” said Jackie, raising her eyebrows as if to say “Duh.”
Then she went on, “Recent high school graduate goes missing? That was big news. There was never a trace of me.”
“Until now,” I told her.
“Yeah, I guess my killer got lucky that the storefront remained empty for so long,” she mused.
A part of me wondered if it was indeed luck that had kept the storefront empty, but only time would tell. At least Paws would be relieved that there was now an investigation to take up our time.
In the distance, the quiet Mintwood day was split by the sound of sirens.
Chapter Six
Jackie’s eyes brightened. “I’m going to enjoy watching this! Back in my day the detective was so hot . . . what was his name . . .” She tapped her finger against her lip but couldn’t seem to come up with a name for the face she remembered.
I had no idea who the detective had been back in the day, and I was worried about having left Liam alone for so long with an extremely upset Miss Violetta. There was an off chance that Jackie might remember more of what had happened to her if I prodded, but I decided that for the moment my best bet was to head back inside.
“She’s calmer,” said Liam, looking up at me.
People were already peering through the shop window, having heard the screaming and now the sirens.
“There’s a skeleton in my wall. My pretty wall . . .” Miss Violetta’s voice wobbled.
I knelt down in front of her and tried to give her a reassuring smile. “It’s okay. The police are on their way. The person has been dead a really long time.”
“Doesn’t make me any less important,” Jackie cut in.
“Have you been working on that wall for a while?” I asked Miss Violetta. Her eyes were huge and she was taking in great gulps of air.
“No, I just started. I know the noise has been driving Liam crazy, so I wanted to give him a break, but I didn’t think that wall would take long. It looked kind of funny, bulging outward. Now I know why . . .”
She covered her mouth with her hand as I exchanged looks with Liam.
“What is the meaning of this?” Detective Cutter demanded, walking purposefully into the salon and coming to an abrupt halt at the sight of the bones that had tumbled out onto the floor.
“Not a pretty view,” Liam muttered. He had a point.
I stood up quickly, while Miss Violetta stayed on the floor, where she had plopped down after she stopped screaming, and looked up at Detective Cutter as if she’d never seen him before.
“I lived my whole life in the city and never saw a dead body until I came to the country,” she wailed.
Detective Cutter’s eyebrows shot into the air. “It’s not a dead body. It’s a skeleton,” he told her.
She blinked at him. Clearly she didn’t think there was enough of a difference to matter.
“By the looks of it, the body has been there for several decades. The place has certainly been boarded up for at least that long,” said Detective Cutter thoughtfully. Then his tone changed and he said, “What are you doing here?”
He barely paused before asking the question, and at first I didn’t realize he was addressing me.
“I was visiting the Twinkle and we heard a scream,” I told him.
“A likely story,” he huffed. “Your grandmother was trouble, obviously, but I didn’t realize that trouble ran in the family.”
A pain opened up in my chest, as sometimes happened when someone mentioned my grandmother out of the blue. At first I thought she’d love to hear whatever the person was saying about her, then I realized that she never would, and then sadness overtook me.
“You see here, she didn’t do anything wrong,” Liam sputtered at the detective.
“Don’t worry about it,” I tried to tell him. It was never a good idea to argue with the police.
“I appreciate your assistance in notifying me, but I can take it from here,” Cutter growled.
I had never seen him so grumpy before, but then again I had never seen him called to a skeleton in a wall scene before, either. He stared at the bones grimly, his eyes distant.
“You want me to help you up?” I asked Miss Violetta.
She looked at me as if she had never see me before. “I might just stay here for another minute, dear,” she breathed.
“Don’t you worry, you can answer my questions from there,” said Detective Cutter, walking over to the wall and examining it.
I exchanged a glance with Liam. It was clearly our time to leave.
My friend motioned to say that we should go back the way we had come. When I looked out the front window, I saw why. By this time a fairly sizable crowd had gathered, and I didn’t want to have to cope with questions any more than Liam did.
Just as we were leaving, Detective Cutter went to the window and closed the bright pink drapes. Without waiting to see what would happen next, we headed out the back door of the salon toward Liam’s shop.
In the fresh air of the alley, Jackie Morris appeared in front of me again. “Are you leaving?” she demanded.
I nodded. It took her a minute to realize that I wasn’t going to speak. Then enlightenment dawned.
“The guy you’re with can’t see me?” she asked.
I shook my head, but she appeared satisfied. “I’m just happy anyone can see me at all. I hope you find some of my friends soon, so they can tell you about me.”
I tried to motion to her to tell me who some of her friends had been, since names would help me find them, but she obviously didn’t understand what I wanted. Just as I was trying to signal the message more clearly, Liam turned around and pointed out the obvious. “Here we are,” he said.
I followed him into the Twinkle, giving up on talking to Jackie for the moment. It wasn’t until he’d closed the door that his shock at recent events burst out of him.
“What the . . .? Oh my goodness!” Liam veritably squealed when we were safely back inside the shop.
There were several people milling around in his space, pretending to look at clothes, but Liam shooed them out and ordered them not to come back until they were ready to buy something from him.
One woman sniffed at him angrily, but Liam shot right back at her. “I’ll have no more sass,” he insisted. “This is a commercial establishment, not a gossip shop!”
He shut the front door firmly behind the last pretend customer and locked it. Then he pressed his back against the door, took a deep breath, and turned to me. “What do you think happened to that skeleton? You think she knew there was a skeleton there? You think the person was murdered?”
“The skeleton had clearly been there for decades. Someone hid her in that wall.”
“We have to find out how long that space has been empty,” said Liam excitedly. “Poor Miss Violetta! She looked awful.”
Just then the phone rang and he rushed to answer it. “Hello?” he said. “Oh, hi Charlie.”
I grinned. That hadn’t taken long.
“Of course you can come over,” Liam was saying. “Your roommate is already here.”
“I wonder if Greer is up yet,” I mused.
Then I realized that Cesar was all alone and I hadn’t been over to check on him yet.
“I’ll be back in twenty minutes,” I told Liam, heading for the door.
“That’s fine,” he said. “I’m sure this isn’t going to be a quick process, and I have some stuff to do around the store anyhow. And Charlie should be here by the time you get back.”
Main Street was now packed with spectators, plus two more cop cars had pulled up in front of the row of buildings that included the Twinkle and the
Mintwood Mirror. I saw the mayor making his way over to the new salon as I left.
Cesar was fine, of course. I played with him for a bit, but my mind was stuck downtown so I didn’t pretend even to myself that I was going to stay for long.
As I was leaving Mr. John’s place I got a phone call from Greer; apparently this neighborhood got cell service, unlike most of the rest of Mintwood. Greer wanted me to pick her up so she wouldn’t miss out on anything to do with what promised to be our next investigation, but by the time I picked her up and we got back downtown I’d been gone for half an hour.
The excitement was palpable. Pretty much everyone I knew was milling around on Main Street, except for the ones who’d been lucky enough to get seats in the Daily Brew and could watch the excitement from the warmth and comfort of the café.
Andre, who ran the art gallery, had picked this exact same time to redo his window display, but he was moving slowly and not watching what he was doing very carefully. I took the liberty of hoping he didn’t end up getting hurt.
“There are as many cop cars here as there usually are for the Mintwood May Parade,” said Greer with surprise.
“The mayor must have called them in from the surrounding towns,” I said as we made our way into the watching crowd.
“Who is that darn sales clerk at the Twinkle who thinks he can keep us out,” sniffed the woman Liam had kicked out earlier, not happening to notice that I was right behind her.
I wondered if Liam was still inside his store, but even as I glanced over that way I saw the curtain move gently and decided that he was. As Greer and I moved through the growing crowd I saw a blond head making her way to the front door of the Twinkle.
“There’s Charlie,” I pointed.
“This way,” said Greer, leading the way through the gathered townspeople. She worked at a bar and had plenty of experience making her way through crowds.
Charlie saw us coming and waited on the doorstep. I thought we’d have to knock, but the second we were all there the lock clicked and the door opened just enough for the three of us to slip in.
Witch Raising Situation (Witch of Mintwood Book 5) Page 4
