“She didn’t mean…” Mom’s voice trailed off as the gravity of Aunt Pearl’s words sank in.
“Of course I meant it,” Aunt Pearl snapped. “I’m not getting into specifics, but let’s just say if you cross me, you’ll regret it big-time.”
Aunt Pearl was still in complete denial about everything from Merlinda’s sudden death to the possibility that a mistake in her tea remedy had something to do with it. Yet she now insinuated that she would kill anyone who crossed her.
“You’re lying. You wouldn’t purposely poison someone.” I glanced into the hallway. Brayden stood guard by Merlinda, but Tyler was nowhere in sight. Just as well. Aunt Pearl’s incriminating poison comments would just compel him to investigate and possibly sidetrack things.
“That depends.”
I sighed. “I don’t know why you’re trying to distract us from the tragedy of what’s happened. Face it, Aunt Pearl. You made a mistake. We all make mistakes sometimes. It’s better for everyone if you just own up to it.”
Aunt Pearl stood and folded her scrawny arms across her chest. “I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate me. I’m not divulging my secrets. That includes my secret tea recipe. About the poison…you guys have nothing to worry about.”
“What secret recipe?” Aunt Amber tapped her finger on a piece of paper. “I’ve got another copy of your recipe right here. I found it lying on the kitchen counter.”
“What? No, you don’t.” Aunt Pearl pulled a folded paper out of her bra. She sighed, visibly relieved. “That’s just another decoy recipe. I always alter the ingredients just in case the recipe falls into enemy hands.” She snatched the paper from Aunt Amber.
“Oh, for crying out loud, Pearl, just own up. You made a mistake.” Aunt Amber pointed to the hall. “Please just admit it before Tyler goes off on a tangent thinking someone was murdered. And don’t go telling anyone else that you’re in the habit of poisoning people on purpose.”
“I did not poison Merlinda. I keep telling you, my tea was perfectly fine. I drank it myself, and look at me. I’m perfff-ectly fine.” Her voice trembled as she spoke.
“No, you’re not. Your teeth are chattering.” Aunt Amber frowned. “I don’t know why you’re trying to sidetrack things, but it’s disrespectful to Merlinda to say the least. Don’t you want the sheriff to get to the bottom of this? Now he thinks her death is suspicious. You’re turning a tragic accident into a murder investigation.”
“I’m doing no such thing,” Aunt Pearl snapped. “Sheriff Gates couldn’t find a killer on death row in a super-max prison. Stop blaming me and focus on finding Merlinda’s real killer. We all know the sheriff never will.”
“Don’t talk about Tyler that way,” I whispered. “And lower your voice. I won’t be part of whatever conspiracy you’re cooking up.”
“Cen’s right, Pearl,” Mom said. “Tyler is a wonderful sheriff. You don’t want to get on his bad side. Just admit your mistake.”
“Oh, for crying out loud, Ruby. There’s nothing wrong with my tea. Sheriff Gates is out to frame me. Maybe he killed Merlinda.”
I walked over to Aunt Pearl and held the candelabra up to her face. She looked pale and a thin sheen of sweat coated her forehead. Her dilated pupils were visible even in the dim light.
I doubted that the candlelight was enough to dilate a seventy-year-old’s pupils, yet Aunt Pearl’s were noticeably enlarged. Maybe it was due to all the excitement and shock at Merlinda’s death. Or maybe her eyes had reacted to something worse, like poison.
I stepped closer. “Are you sure you’re okay, Aunt Pearl? You don’t look so hot.”
Aunt Pearl raised her hand, shielding her eyes. “For crying out loud, Cen, get that light out of my face. And stop bombarding me with questions. This interrogation is uncalled for. What’s next—waterboarding?”
I opened my mouth but thought better of it. At least she remained her usual cantankerous self. That was a good sign, and I didn’t want to antagonize her further. But she looked awfully unsteady. I placed the candelabra on the coffee table. “Mom, come help me.”
“Ooh…I feel tired all of a sudden. I really need to sit down.” Aunt Pearl’s hand trembled as she touched her forehead.
Mom and I steered Aunt Pearl to the sofa, and not a moment too soon.
Aunt Pearl legs buckled under, and she collapsed onto the sofa. She clutched her stomach and slowly slid down into a lying position. “I don’t feel so hot.”
The room suddenly brightened, but it wasn’t the electricity coming back on.
It was Merlinda’s doing. Though she was gone, her tropical snow globe still glowed. It waxed and waned, casting an eerie light throughout the darkened living room. She was—or had been—such a powerful witch that the residue of her powers remained even after her death.
Which was weird. Creepy, in fact. It was a testament to Merlinda’s supernatural powers. Yet, despite her strength, someone had still gotten the better of her.
“Cen?” Aunt Pearl sat up and croaked in a raspy voice. “How long does it take to poison someone? You’re an expert in these sorts of things.”
I couldn’t answer even if I wanted to. I was rendered speechless, intoxicated by Merlinda’s globe as it grew brighter. Now it pulsated with light and seemed to take on a life of its own. It was beautiful.
My jealousy toward Merlinda seemed so petty now. All these months, I could have reached out and befriended her. She had been alone in a strange country, away from family and friends. And I had purposely shunned her when I could have protected her. It was too late for any of that now, and I regretted my pettiness.
“I don’t know anything about poisoning people.” I glared at Aunt Pearl. “Don’t you dare try to shift the blame onto me.”
“Oh Cen, relax.” Aunt Pearl let out a heavy sigh. “Everybody knows that you’re a lousy witch and couldn’t even poison a flea if your life depended on it. I just thought that with your journalist background that you would know something about poisons in general. I was testing your knowledge. Just so you know, you failed miserably.”
Aunt Pearl seemed to have completely recovered from whatever calamity had struck her moments ago. Maybe it was all an act.
“Let’s refocus on Merlinda.” I turned to Aunt Amber. “Can’t you make her cooperate?”
Aunt Amber shrugged as if to absolve herself of any responsibility for her sister. She obviously feared provoking Aunt Pearl further. She pointed at the empty teacup. “Kind of late for that.”
“You’re overreacting as usual, Cen,” Aunt Pearl brightened. “I’ll just do a rewind spell. Melinda will come back, none of us will eat or drink anything more, and everything will be fine.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Aunt Amber said. “You can’t do rewind spells on yourself.”
“Fine, Amber. You think you know everything, so you do it.” Aunt Pearl glared at Aunt Amber and held her arms up in surrender. “Rewind me.”
I glanced out to the hallway just as Tyler reappeared in the doorway. He and Brayden had moved Merlinda during our heated discussion. Brayden was nowhere to be seen though.
Tyler sidestepped Dominic as he entered the living room. “Nobody’s rewinding anything.”
Aunt Amber sniffed. “He’s right, Pearl. We don’t want to cover up the accident.”
“I keep telling you—it was no accident!” Aunt Pearl shot up from the sofa, all signs of illness gone. “You’re not listening to me!”
Dominic frowned. He stood and left the living room for the hall.
Earl still hadn’t reappeared, and I wondered what he was doing. Tyler had instructed all of us to stay in the living room, but that was after Earl had vanished.
Brayden no longer stood in the hall either, but I figured he’d lie low after being forced to assist Tyler. On the other hand, it was strange that he wasn’t sitting on the sofa with Gail trying to make me jealous or something.
Aunt Amber frowned. “One more thing, Pearl. If Merlinda was murdered a
s you claim, how could you even rewind the spell in the first place? You wouldn’t know enough details to rewind. Is there something you’re not telling us?”
Gail looked up from filing her nails. “What on earth are you people talking about?”
We all ignored her.
Aunt Pearl stomped her foot and scowled. “Stop changing the subject, Amber. I keep telling you, I am absolutely certain that there was nothing wrong with my tea. It’s murder.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Tyler picked up the teacup with a gloved hand and deposited it into a plastic bag.
“Arrest me and you’ll pay, Sheriff Gates.”
Tyler rolled his eyes. “You just never know when to quit, Pearl.”
Aunt Pearl waved a bony arm in the air. “Why don’t you quit this town, Sheriff Gates? We don’t need you here.”
He winked at Aunt Pearl. “I think that you really do need me. I keep you out of trouble.”
“Nobody keeps me out of anything. Especially not you, Sheriff!! I’m into plenty you don’t know about. Don’t give yourself credit you don’t deserve.”
“Aunt Pearl, stop arguing—” I was interrupted by Earl.
“I found my measuring cup.” Earl stood in the dining room doorway, his face flushed and sweating. His Santa suit was half unbuttoned, revealing a plaid work shirt underneath. Both his shirt and the suit were covered in a dusting of white powder. “It was almost the same as Ruby’s, but the one I used for the poison had a cracked spout.”
“Oh no! That is the measuring cup I used. I remember it now.” Mom jumped up from the sofa and screamed as she ran into the dining room.
My heart thumped in my chest as I ran after Mom.
I stared at the dining room table. The Christmas cake platter was empty. Not a crumb remained, but there was something else in its place.
Two dead mice.
“Oh my god!” Mom screamed. “We’re all going to die!”
17
I placed my arm around Mom and squeezed her shoulder to console her. “Maybe the mice were already poisoned from Earl’s concoction before they hopped onto the table. I turned to Earl and asked the obvious. “Were they already on the plate, or did you put them there?”
“Of course I didn’t put them there. Why would I do that?” Earl wiped his sweaty brow. “I went to change out of this stupid Santa suit—it’s so damn hot—and that’s when I saw the dead mice on the table.”
“How did you get that flour all over you?” Aunt Amber’s eyes narrowed as she looked suspiciously at Earl. A dusting of white powder covered the top half of his Santa suit. “Mistaking it for rat poison again?”
Earl shook his head and held out his hands in protest. “No…that’s not what happened at all. But I had to know whether or not Ruby got my measuring cup mixed up with hers. It’s been driving me nuts, and I couldn’t live with myself if that happened, so I went back into the kitchen to test it.”
“How exactly do you do a toxicology test on an empty measuring cup?” Aunt Amber asked.
“I never said it was scientific or anything.” Earl looked down at his oversized Santa belt buckle. “But if it was my rat poison, there is a way to tell.”
“How?” I asked.
“I filled the empty measuring cup with water. It didn’t fizz, so that told me that it really was just flour in Ruby’s measuring cup.” He frowned as he saw we weren’t following his logic. “My homemade rat poison recipe fizzes if you add water.”
“You make your own poison?” I shuddered, thinking that homemade poison sounded like something Aunt Pearl would do. Maybe they weren’t so different from each other after all. I wondered how many more deadly recipes were in our house.
Earl rolled his eyes. “Of course I make my own. I’m a farmer so I improvise. I used flour, sugar, baking soda, and a little peanut butter. Oh…and a small amount of warfarin.”
I frowned. “The blood thinner?”
Earl nodded. “Just a small dose is toxic to rodents. The amount I used is harmless to humans, just like the rest of the ingredients. The peanut butter, flour, and sugar attract the critters, and then the baking soda and warfarin kills them by giving them both gas and ulcers. People can fart but mice and rats can’t. All that gas is fatal to them. The warfarin is just an extra measure. Works like magic.” Earl snapped his fingers for effect.
“So my cake wasn’t poisonous after all?”
Earl shook his head. “Not unless you’re a rodent who can’t pass gas.”
Mom pressed her palms together in a prayer gesture. “Thank goodness I didn’t kill anyone.”
I shrugged. “I guess we’re right back to square one.”
Aunt Pearl gave me a blank stare.
“Your tea.” I was only half-joking because Aunt Pearl’s bruised ego often led to drastic actions. Judging by the cargo cult accounts and my own first-hand experience with the snow globe, Merlinda was already a better witch than Aunt Pearl. After all, Merlinda had single-handedly fooled an entire South Pacific island nation with her witchcraft. A tall order even for the most expert of witches.
I glanced at her snow globe. It seemed to glow even brighter than it had just moments ago.
“Thanks for nothing, Earl.” Aunt Pearl scowled. “I really thought we had something special together.”
“Of course we do, Pearl,” Earl said. “But we all make mistakes now and then. I make plenty, which is why I double-checked to be sure I hadn’t messed up the ingredients in my own recipe and possibly contaminated Ruby’s by using the same measuring cup. I even tested it myself to be sure. Anybody can make a mistake. If you think you accidentally poisoned Merlinda, then you should just say so.”
Mom nodded. “I know it’s hard to admit mistakes, but we all make them. Even my perfectionist sister.”
Aunt Pearl dropped her head into her hands. “I-I just don’t know anymore. I’m always so careful, but with all the stuff going on, maybe I did mix up a few ingredients.”
Aunt Pearl was such a stickler for detail. It was hard to imagine that she had made a mistake, even with her admission. Milk thistle and mistletoe differed dramatically in appearance, for one. Any change in her tea ingredients had to be deliberate, not accidental.
On the other hand, she was love struck and had been increasingly absent-minded about other things lately. She was also getting older. Maybe forgetfulness was inevitable. I flashed back to my snow globe fiasco. Aunt Pearl could be mean-spirited, but she would never leave me outside in the frigid cold to freeze to death. Especially not in front of other people. No, Aunt Pearl’s justice was always meted out in private.
Had she taken things a little too far with Merlinda? Most teachers took joy in their students’ achievements, even when they eclipsed their teacher. But Aunt Pearl would be crushed if Merlinda had outshone her with witchcraft. Would she stand for that?
In a word, no.
I shifted my gaze to Merlinda’s tropical snow globe. Against all odds, the globe grew even brighter and now pulsated with energy. That was some powerful magic.
18
I tore my gaze from Merlinda’s snow globe and refocused on Aunt Pearl. Aunt Amber’s constant mention of the mistletoe tea was irritating, but Aunt Pearl needed to own up to her mistakes.
Her tea couldn’t be ruled out until it was tested for toxins and eliminated from consideration. I suspected she had accidentally added mistletoe instead of milk thistle. Deep down I wanted Aunt Pearl to realize that no one is perfect. Not even her.
Drawing the wrong conclusions about Aunt Pearl’s tea, Mom’s cake, or anything else for that matter, could lead the investigation in the wrong direction, though. It was time to set matters straight.
Dominic appeared in the living room doorway, boots on and jacket in hand.
Aunt Amber gasped. “You can’t leave.”
“You can’t force me to stay here. Somebody just killed my wife, and the sheriff’s not doing anything about it. He won’t let me anywhere near her, but he’ll let a killer roam
free.” Dominic slipped an arm into his jacket sleeve and turned back to the hallway. “I’m not waiting for the killer to pick us off, one by one.”
“Tyler is limited in what he can do, Dominic,” I said. “He can’t investigate an incident he’s directly involved in. It’s a conflict of interest. He’ll need to hand off the investigation to the Shady Creek police. But before that happens, he has to at least contain the crime scene. That means nobody leaves.”
Mom gasped. “Cen’s right. Tyler—I mean Sherriff Gates—knows what’s best. No matter what, you can’t go out in the storm. You’ll freeze to death!”
Dominic zipped his jacket. “I’d rather take my chances outside than stay here.”
Aunt Amber shook her head. “No, you have to stay. No one’s in danger because there is no killer. Merlinda’s death was an accident. Pearl just messed up with her deadly tea.”
“Stop accusing me of murder. Amber.” Aunt Pearl snapped. “Why on earth would I harm Merlinda?”
“I-I never said you did it intentionally, Pearl.” Aunt Amber looked around uneasily. “Who knows? Maybe it was your tea, or maybe it was Ruby’s cake. Something killed Merlinda, and all we know is that it was a terrible accident. Nobody here’s a killer, though.”
“Get real.” Dominic snorted. “The killer is right here in this room. I’m getting help.”
“Help from whom?” Mom asked. “You can’t make it to Shady Creek with the roads still closed. And we’re lucky to have Sheriff Gates right here keeping us safe.”
“More like unlucky,” Aunt Pearl muttered under her breath.
“Hmphf.” Brayden made no secret of his dislike and lack of confidence in Tyler. He would have fired him in an instant if he could. But finding a replacement was pretty much impossible, and firing him would make Brayden a very unpopular mayor. No one else in their right mind wanted to enforce law and order in Westwick Corners.
Christmas Witch List--A Westwick Witches Cozy Mystery Page 10
