Probable Paws (Mystic Notch Cozy Mystery Series Book 5)

by Leighann Dobbs

  “Now that,” Pepper said as she piled the teacups, napkins, and other items onto the tea tray, “I can help you with. I haven’t paid my respects yet, and I’m sure I should bring them a soothing tea. One that might give them loose lips and cause them to blurt out the truth. You can come with me.”

  “Okay.” My voice rose an uncertain octave at the end of the word. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go with Pepper, but her teas … well, as I said, I had come to believe there was something about them. It was just unfortunate that they often backfired. I was worried about what a tea that was supposed to give people loose lips would actually do.

  Pepper neatly placed the last napkin on the tray and then leaned back on the couch with a smirk on her face. “So you believe in this stuff now, don’t you?”

  Pepper got a kick out of the fact that I resisted believing in magic despite the fact that I talked to ghosts. But now, I was starting to be a little more open minded. There were a lot of things going on that could only be explained away with magic. But I didn’t need to admit that to Pepper. She’d just gloat. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “Huh.” She hefted the tray and stood. “Well, I better be getting back to my shop. Do you want to go to the Hamiltons’ tomorrow around noon? I can get Camilla to watch the store.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Meeoo!” Pandora chimed in.

  “No, you can’t come.”

  Pandora arched her back and hissed then spun around in her bed, curling up with her nose tucked under her tail and her back to me.

  Pepper laughed as she opened the door. “I see she hasn’t changed. If only she knew she’s much better off staying here. Our visit tomorrow could be dangerous, especially if one of the Hamiltons turns out to be a cold-blooded killer.”

  14

  The next morning, the bookstore was busy with customers. I made a tidy sum on a first edition of The Cat Who Could Read Backwards and sold dozens of other books for more modest sums. I didn’t have much time to think about the Hamiltons or which one of them was a killer. For all I knew, they’d all been in on it together.

  It all made perfect sense now. Even though Gus had claimed that Adelaide died of natural causes, Max’s suspicions and what Adelaide herself had said combined with the fact that Striker had been nosing around the Hamilton estate all led in the same direction—murder.

  It was funny, though. Gus usually didn’t lie to me to keep me from investigating murders. Maybe she was trying a new tactic to keep me away. I guessed I’d have the last laugh, since it didn’t work.

  Too bad I hadn’t had a chance to try to use my powers of persuasion to extract information from Striker. He’d been suspiciously absent. I hadn’t even gotten a how-you-doing text from him. I had to admit that I’d harbored a secret hope that he would show up at my house for dinner the previous night, but the only thing I had found on my doorstep was a red-and-white-checkered-cloth-covered picnic basket that held the most delicious beef stew and biscuits from Elspeth. She even included a piece of her mouthwatering apple pie and a little handmade treat for Pandora along with a note in her scrawling handwriting stating it was one of her favorite dishes but she hoped she’d gotten the recipe correct.

  Was the mention of the word “recipe” a coincidence? I wondered how much Elspeth actually knew about the recipe book. Gram had said I should give it to Elspeth. If it was a spell book, wouldn’t Elspeth know that? Maybe Elspeth knew about magic and all her “lucky guesses” weren’t really guesses at all.

  Before I had any more time to think about Elspeth, Pepper appeared, carrying the pink-and-green quilted tea cozy bag she had custom-made specifically to keep the water warm in her teapot. It also had sections for scones, tea, sugar, and milk. It was her own mobile tea shop.

  I eyed the bag warily as we drove to the Hamilton mansion. “Is the loose-lip tea in there?”

  Pepper smiled. “Hopefully. I also infused it with a droning charm. Whoever drinks the tea will drone on and on without noticing what’s going on around them. I figured I could keep the Hamiltons busy with that while you slip out and check the library.”

  The mansion looked more imposing today than it had on my previous visit. Perhaps it was because I now knew that a murderer lived inside. Pepper ascended the granite steps with her quilted bag slung over her shoulder and knocked on the wooden door. The butler—I remembered his name was John from the other day—opened it, raising a brow at Pepper and then looking down his nose at me.

  “Did you leave something here the other day?” he asked.

  “She’s with me. I’ve come to pay my respects. I brought a special herbal tea for the family.” Pepper held up the bag and gave him her sweetest smile. Obviously he was a lot more taken with her than he had been with me, because he opened the door wide and said, “Of course. Come right in.”

  Pepper breezed in, and he smiled as she passed him, then his smile snapped into a frown as he looked at me with my right foot tentatively poised over the threshold. “I suppose you can come in, too.”

  We followed him down the hall to the same room where I’d talked to the family the other day. Josie was the only one there today. She wore faded jeans and a white silk blouse and was slumped on the off-white linen sofa looking as if she were almost asleep.

  “Ahem.” John cleared his throat.

  Josie jerked awake with a half snore and looked at us with bleary eyes. “Wha?”

  “You have visitors,” the butler said then did his disappearing act.

  Pepper sat beside Josie, taking her hand. “I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m Pepper St. Onge, from The Tea Shoppe downtown.”

  “Yes, of course.” Josie’s eyes drifted to the bag.

  “I brought tea.” Pepper opened the bag and produced a silver trivet, which she placed on the coffee table. Then she reached in and pulled out a matching silver teapot and put that gently on top of the trivet. She proceeded to reach in several more times, coming up with embroidered napkins, cups and saucers, matching silver creamer and sugar, a doily-covered plate, and an assortment of scones.

  Josie watched as if mesmerized. I couldn’t really blame her. She was probably wondering, as I was, how Pepper fit all that stuff in the small bag. It reminded me of those small cars at the circus that an impossible number of clowns pile out of.

  “I brought enough for everyone,” Pepper said, looking around the room. “Where are the other Hamilton family members?”

  Josie looked up as if just noticing no one else was in the room. She waved her hand. “Oh, they’re around somewhere.”

  Pepper cast a glance at me, and I shrugged.

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll like this tea. I created it specifically to help with grief,” Pepper said as she handed the steaming cup to Josie.

  Josie took a tentative sip, her red lipstick marring the rim of the white porcelain teacup. She frowned, swirling the liquid around her mouth, and then swallowed. “Oh, it’s quite good.”

  We sipped and nibbled politely while Pepper soothed Josie with simple questions. I only pretended to drink the tea. I wasn’t sure if it really worked, but I wasn’t taking any chances on getting “loose lips.” I did notice that Josie became more talkative as time passed. Was the tea really working, or was she just finally starting to wake up from the nap we’d obviously interrupted?

  “It must have been awful finding your mother like that,” Pepper said.

  Josie nodded. “A terrible shock.”

  “It’s bad enough when your parent passed, but to be the one to find them…” Pepper soothed.

  “Yes … Oh, I didn’t find Mom,” Josie said. “Aunt Marion did.”

  “It’s still awful. I’m sure you had to see her.”

  Josie’s eyes welled and took on a faraway look. “No, I was asleep in the library.”

  Pepper slid her eyes over to me. Josie was lying.

  “Well, it must be nice to have such a close family and have had everyone around you that morning,” Pepper continued her covert interrogat
ion.

  Josie snorted. “Close? They’re a bunch of vipers. They were all only here because they are living off Mom’s money.”

  “Oh, well, I’m sure there’s plenty to go around,” I said.

  “Pfft.” Josie sipped more tea. “Not if you ask Lisa. She doesn’t think there is enough for her. And my brother, well, he won’t say boo to his wife. Who knows what Max is up to, always lurking around, and I can’t believe he talked Mom into letting him use the cottage. What does he do out there? We have a lot of old family stuff out there, and I don’t like the idea of him fooling around with it.”

  “Evie and Julie must have liked being so close to their grandma, though,” I said.

  Josie’s face relaxed into a smile. “Yes, my two girls were very precious to Mom. The girls are so different from each other. Did you know they were twins?”

  I nodded. “Yep. Seems they do a lot together.”

  Except worship the moon in the middle of the night—only Evie does that.

  Josie bit her lip. “They did until Julie hooked up with Brian. Oh, he seems nice enough, very interested in family gatherings and the Hamilton history, but I can tell Evie doesn’t like him.”

  “Maybe she’s jealous that Julie has found someone and she’s a third wheel,” Pepper said.

  Josie frowned. “That’s probably it. She doesn’t seem interested in finding anyone of her own, though. More interested in sleeping in late and reading. Evie and Mom were the closest…” Josie’s voice trailed off, and she picked a scone off the tray. “These are good. Cranberry?”

  “Yes, my grandmother’s recipe,” Pepper said. “I suppose your family had some great old recipes.”

  “Recipes? Mom hasn’t baked in years. Evie wanted her to teach her, but the lessons didn’t take. We have a cook, so why is baking necessary?”

  “Good point.” Pepper poured more tea into Josie’s cup, and the conversation turned to more mundane matters. Josie talked a lot but seemed introspective, as if she were paying little attention to the two of us in the room with her. Was Pepper’s droning charm taking effect?

  I put my full teacup down on the saucer. “May I use your bathroom?”

  Josie waved her hand in the air, barely acknowledging my question. “Whatever.”

  I slipped out the door into the hall and managed to get into the library unnoticed. Now what? I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something important in the library, but where? Was the recipe book in here? There were hundreds of books. It would take me forever to search the entire room.

  “Adelaide?” I whispered. No such luck. Ghosts rarely turned up when you wanted them to.

  My eyes fell on the daisy painting. I had been interrupted before when I was searching for the recipe book on the shelves underneath—maybe I should start there. Just as I got to the painting, though, I heard a noise in the hallway.

  Someone was coming!

  I didn’t want to be caught snooping in the library again, so I slipped into the reading nook and plastered myself against the wall behind the burgundy velvet drape. I held my breath as I heard someone coming into the room. Then I heard strange clanking and scratching sounds. I risked peeking and was surprised to see Lisa take a silver candlestick off the fireplace mantel and drop it into an oversized burlap tote bag, where it clanked against whatever else was in there. She turned, pressing her index finger to her lips, her eyes lighting up as she spied something on the other side of the room. I ducked back behind the curtain as she made a beeline in that direction.

  “What are you doing?” A male voice sounded from the direction of the doorway.

  “Nothing.” Lisa, defiant. “Not that it’s any of your business anyway, Brian.”

  “It looks like you’re stealing stuff,” Brian said.

  “I’m not stealing. I’m collecting things to sell. We have too much stuff, the house is loaded, and we need to pare down a bit, don’t you think?”

  “No. I don’t. This stuff isn’t yours to sell off at some auction.”

  “I’m not taking it to some auction. Felicity Bates has expressed an interest in buying some of our family things. She’s especially interested in these books here. She’s a collector.”

  “I don’t care what she is. I don’t think you should be selling anything. This is for the family to decide on.”

  Lisa snorted. “Well, since you aren’t family, I guess you can butt out.”

  Lisa and Brian continued arguing, but I had stopped listening as soon as I’d heard the name Felicity Bates. The mere mention of the woman made me shudder. She was bad news, as I’d found out quite painfully when I’d first moved to Mystic Notch. Rumor had it she was some kind of a witch, and witches used spell books. She was no book collector. She was after Betty’s Recipes.

  Marion’s harsh voice interrupted my thoughts. “What are you people doing in here?”

  I shrank back farther into the nook.

  “Lisa was stealing things and putting them in this bag,” Brian said.

  “Stealing? You put those back.” I heard scraping and clanking sounds, which I assumed was Lisa putting the things back, and then Marion said, “Now get out of here, both of you. There’ll be no more stealing or appropriating of goods. These are all Hamilton family heirlooms, and neither one of you is welcome to them.”

  I could hear the sounds of Marion herding Lisa and Brian out of the room. I wanted to go back over to the painting and look for the book. I was sure it must still be here somewhere. Otherwise Felicity Bates wouldn’t be trying to get Lisa to sell the books to her. But I didn’t dare stay in the room any longer. I’d already been gone for quite some time, and I was afraid that even with the droning charm Josie might notice how long I’d been missing. I couldn’t run the risk of the Hamiltons becoming more suspicious of me. I might need them to answer questions later on.

  As I slipped out of the library, a dark figure at the end of the hall caught my eye. Evie. She narrowed her eyes in an accusatory glare.

  I waved cheerfully. “I was just looking for the bathroom. Wrong turn.”

  I scurried back to the drawing room to collect Pepper and get the heck out of there.

  15

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” Pepper asked as we pulled out of the Hamilton driveway.

  “No, but I discovered something disturbing.”

  “What?”

  “Felicity Bates approached Lisa Hamilton, wanting to buy things from the house—including books.”

  “Oh boy, this can’t be good.”

  “Tell me about it. Felicity is bad news.”

  “No, not that.” Pepper nodded her chin toward the side-view mirror. “That.”

  Striker’s car was coming up the road very quickly behind me.

  Was he pulling me over? He didn’t have his lights on, but by the way he was advancing on me, it sure seemed that way. I pulled to the side of the road, and to my dismay he stopped behind me. I hesitated, watching him open his door.

  Pepper shoved my arm. “Well, get out there and see what he wants.”

  I got out, walking the length of the Jeep to meet him in the middle. My heart did a little two-step at the way his tall, broad-shouldered frame filled out his uniform. I’d seen him in it many times before, but for some reason he still had this effect on me. Guess I’m a sucker for a man in uniform. He looked a little tired, with a shadow of stubble that I itched to run my fingertips across.

  “Please tell me you didn’t pull me over for speeding,” I said.

  Striker grinned. “You? Never. I noticed you’re getting awfully friendly with the Hamiltons.”

  “Not really. Pepper needed to pay her respects, and she wanted company. I haven’t talked to them other than the two times I came here.” I decided to keep Max’s visit to myself. After all, he did offer to help me and asked me not to tell the police about his suspicions. Okay, that in itself was kind of weird, but I hadn’t decided yet if he was a suspect or an ally, and I didn’t want to say a thing to Striker until
I was sure.

  “And the time you were skulking around over at the cottage,” Striker reminded me.

  I wanted to come up with a pithy answer, but a swirling mist on my right distracted me. I blinked, hoping it was just something in my eye.

  “Something wrong with your eye?”

  “No.” My reply had a tinge of irritation, but it wasn’t aimed at Striker. As I’d feared, the swirling mist was Adelaide’s ghost. Why did she have to show up now? Couldn’t she have shown up when I was in the house and needed her guidance to find the book?

  “The book’s not in the house, I don’t think,” Adelaide said. I raised a brow in her direction.

  “Is there something over there?” Striker asked, a curious look on his face as he glanced in Adelaide’s direction. For a split second I feared he could see her, because his brows snapped together, but then his eyes jerked over to some spot behind my left shoulder.

  I turned to look, but nothing was there. “Did you see something?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Me either.”

  “I had that book carefully hidden, but now all my things are rearranged. Someone has been going through them,” Adelaide continued.

  “Lisa,” I blurted out.

  Striker scrunched up his face. “Who?”

  “Oh, nothing. Sorry.” I shifted my stance so that Adelaide was behind me then focused on Striker. “So did you want something?”

  “I haven’t seen you in a while, and I wanted to catch up.” Striker waved his hand in the air as if waving something away, and I looked behind me again. What was wrong with him?

  “You wanted to catch up out here in the middle of the road?” I asked. Now that I knew Adelaide had been murdered, I was positive Striker was investigating the case. Why wouldn’t he just tell me that? I pushed down a flutter of annoyance. He was always telling me not to butt in as if I were some bumbling idiot that didn’t know how to investigate a murder. He seemed to have forgotten that I was once a top-notch crime journalist in Massachusetts. “Or were you trying to figure out what I knew about Adelaide’s murder?”