The Old Witcheroo

by Dakota Cassidy

  “Shoot, is Luis ever gonna be mad at you for making him leave that swanky club he was having dinner at with his wife. Were I you, I’d preempt his arrival by at the very least getting him a gift certificate to Chili’s. You know, to ease the pain, and maybe even your suffering when he gives you the Luis Lipton tongue-lashing special. Because baby back ribs soothe ruffled feathers, don’t you think?” I rubbed my belly and winked.

  Just then, the door to the interrogation room burst open. Yay. Bad Cop, Sean Moore, had arrived. He yanked the chair out beside Detective Montgomery, plunked down in it, and glared at me with those ice chips he passed off as eyes.

  Which made me very inappropriately laugh out loud.

  “What’s so funny, Cartwright?” he growled at me, his tight black T-shirt rippling atop his mounds of muscle. I was endlessly fascinated by this act he portrayed. The clothes he wore that screamed, I’m just one of you—a real man of the people, the spitting, hissing, hardcore questions.

  I covered my mouth until I composed myself. Then I leaned forward on the metal table and peered at him with questioning eyes. “Do you like kittens, Detective Moore? Rainbows? Hallmark Channel movies?”

  “What?” he bellowed in my face with enough force to lift my bangs off my forehead.

  But I just smiled at him and winked. “I know this is all an act—this hardened detective thing you do. Secretly, you’re soft and gooey on the inside. Like a toasted marshmallow. Speaking of marshmallows, I’m starving. So could we get on with this, please? I already know I’m not a suspect. The cat’s out of the bag. There’s no reason for you to bust an artery over little old me.”

  Detective Montgomery held up a hand to indicate he’d had enough, then he cleared his throat. “Did Officer Dana Nelson come to your house yesterday and ask to borrow your rowboat?”

  “Yep.”

  “What time?”

  “I’m not one hundred on this, so don’t quote me, but it was well after lunch. I know because I was still a little gassy from the frozen burrito I had, but before dinner, because the gas had passed and my stomach was starting to growl.”

  Honest. I was telling them the truth. I really couldn’t remember the exact time.

  “What time, Miss Cartwright?” Detective Moore spat, drumming his knuckles on the metal table.

  “Do you have TMJ?” I asked him, cocking my head to the left.

  Clearly I’d caught him off guard, because he looked at me like I’d just sprouted a forked tongue. “TM who?”

  “TMJ. You know, it’s when your jaw locks up and pains you. Especially when you chew the flesh off the bones of your enemies.”

  Detective Moore rubbed a hand over his jaw, his expression suddenly confused. “Why do ya wanna know?”

  “Because you clench your teeth all the time with all that snarling. I just figured you probably suffered from TMJ, too. You should see your dentist.”

  Detective Moore sighed, his aggravation loud and clear. “What time did Officer Nelson ask to borrow the boat, Miss Cartwright?”

  “I’m not sure. Before dinner’s the best I have to offer.”

  Detective Montgomery lifted his chin. “What did he say to you? Did he tell you why he wanted to borrow the rowboat?”

  I’d told them all this when they’d questioned me at the beach. “Sure. He said ‘I need to borrow your rowboat, Stevie. I’m going to kill Sophia. But I promise I’ll have it back before dawn’.”

  “Miss Cartwright…” Detective Montgomery warned, shifting in his chair and dropping the pen he held.

  Oooo, if Good Cop was getting annoyed, I’d better not push my luck.

  So I quirked another smile at them. “Oh, fine. I already told you this at the beach today, but if your note-taking skills have gone awry, I’ll reiterate. He just said he wanted to take Sophia out in my rowboat and he’d have it back to me sometime later that evening.”

  Detective Moore demanded, “Did you even ask why he wanted to borrow it?”

  “Um, pretty girl plus handsome guy, plus googly eyes when their gazes meet, plus been dating for several months usually equals date. I didn’t have to be a detective like you fine, upstanding gentleman to figure it out. I’m the unmath, under normal circumstances, but this one was a no-brainer. So no, I didn’t pry, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I’d think most people would ask when someone wants to borrow their property.”

  I snorted with derision as I shook my head at Detective Montgomery’s statement. “Seriously, guys? This is the best you’ve got? He didn’t ask to borrow my Lambo or an ovary. He asked to borrow a rickety, old, barely seaworthy rowboat, for gracious sakes. Not to mention he’s a police officer. There’s a certain amount of trust that instills. Unless what you’re saying is I shouldn’t trust the men in blue? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Knock it off, Cartwright,” Detective Moore groused, cracking his burly knuckles and neck in simultaneous pops.

  Letting my head hang low to contain my impatience, I counted to five and prayed they wouldn’t ask me about the marriage proposal Dana hadn’t told anyone about but me.

  Detective Montgomery nudged his partner and plastered that smile back on his face. “Did Officer Nelson appear out of sorts to you yesterday? Angry? Sad?”

  “He seemed like Officer Nelson. You know, the way he always seems. In complete control, impeccably dressed. He was neither upset nor angry, or displaying any extreme behaviors. He was polite and succinct. I mean, we talked for like a total of three minutes. It was no big deal.”

  Because in all honesty, it wasn’t. I neglected to mention how his eyes twinkled and you could fairly hear his heart singing, but these two wouldn’t understand emotions like that due to their Mesozoic era mindsets. I kept the birds singing in a circle around Dana’s head and the flutter of angel wings to myself.

  Detective Montgomery sat back in his chair and nodded. “Okay then. Have you noticed anyone unusual hanging around your neck of the woods?”

  “You mean on my private stretch of beach? No. Sometimes old man Hinkle passes out drunk in my boat, but that’s about it.”

  “Have you ever heard Dana Nelson and Sophia Fleming argue?” Detective Moore pressed, clenching his fists.

  “Also negative, boys. I saw Sophia when I went to the library. Sometimes at Strange Brew, or the diner when I’m grabbing a quick meal between clients. She was always smiling and kind—even when she told me I’d racked up a twenty-dollar bill on overdue library books. I see Officer Nelson when I’m sticking my nose into one of his investigations, which, by the by, he keeps a tight lid on. In case you’re wondering about his integrity as an officer. And whenever I saw the two of them together, they were always laughing and happy. Happy. Got that? There was never any discourse I was aware of.”

  Detective Montgomery flicked his pen top in annoying fashion. I was grating on his nerves, without doubt. He probably wanted to go see whomever that lipstick stain belonged to as much as I wanted to see the bottom of a can of Pringles. “Did you hear anything last night?”

  I shook my head. Anyone who knew me knows that isn’t a surprise. “Nothing. I sleep like I’m in a coma. I didn’t see anything. I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t suspect anything was wrong between Officer Nelson and Sophia, or have any reason to suspect something could go wrong. I didn’t see anything until today, when my dog found her purse, which was what led me to look inside my boat.”

  They both stared at me. Okay, so Detective Montgomery stared. Detective Moore glared at me some more, as if the evil eye would compel me to confess something I’d purposely avoided telling him.

  But what else was there left to ask? I was officially a dead-end lead.

  As we sat in the uncomfortable silence, I heard voices from outside the door just before my lawyer, Luis Lipton, stuck his head inside, narrowed his gaze at my surly detective friends, and pursed his lips.

  “Ah, gentleman. We meet again. I’ll assume you’re done with my client, from the resounding silence I’m
greeted with?”

  Detective Moore used the heel of his hands to push off from the table with a snarl. “Yeah, we’re done with her.”

  “Gosh, you make it sound so final, Detective Moore. I hope you don’t mean done-done, as in forever. What would my life be like without you in it?” I teased.

  “Of course you are, Detective… Simone, is it?” Luis asked on a chuckle, reminding them he was in on my joke.

  I giggled and shook my head as I began to rise. “No. he’s Sipowicz. You know, cranky, easily riled. They’re easy to confuse.”

  “Riiight,” Luis drawled, winking at me before he double-checked with Detective Montgomery. “Are we sure we’re done, Detective?”

  “We’re done,” Detective Montgomery said, but this time he wasn’t smiling.

  Luis held out his dapperly clad arm to me. “Shall we, Miss Cartwright?”

  I wagged my fingers over my shoulder and grinned at the pair. “So until the next pointless interrogation? TTFN, guys!”

  As Luis escorted me toward the front of the station, I apologized for making him leave his dinner for nothing, but he wouldn’t hear of it. “You pay me quite well. No apology necessary. Besides, you saved me from ordering dessert.” He patted his non-existent belly with a chuckle. “Now let’s get you home. You’ve had a trying day, no doubt. And my apologies about your acquaintance. So tragic.”

  Just as we were stepping out the door to the station, three officers charged in, along with Officer Gorton, who, if at all possible, looked even worse than he had earlier, making me pause.

  I wasn’t as familiar with these two officers as I was with Sandwich and Officer Nelson, but Officer Gorton appeared pretty frazzled, or maybe a better word was defeated, disappointed. Beaten. Yeah. He looked beaten.

  He had something in his hand in a Ziploc bag, which he set on his desk with great reluctance, judging by how hesitant his movements came across, and as I got a closer look (okay, I stood on my tiptoes to see what was in the bag. I did say I was nosy), I saw it was a gun.

  Now if that didn’t make me pause, the unfamiliar officer’s words did.

  The tall blond one, lanky, with limbs like spaghetti, shook his head when the shorter, baby-faced guy mumbled, “Can’t even believe we found that at Nelson’s.”

  “You think it’s the murder weapon?” Spaghetti Limbs asked.

  The baby-faced officer’s eyes went grim. “Looks like it’s been fired recently, and it’s the same caliber bullet used to kill Sophia. A 9mm.”

  I fought a loud groan.

  Have I mentioned I really hate this day?

  Chapter 6

  “Ugh,” I sighed, letting my head rest on my Madam Zoltar table. It was the morning after Sophia’s murder and I hadn’t heard a single peep from Officer Nelson, but that gun those two officers had found last night had troubled me something fierce, leaving me with a fitful night of nightmares.

  “We should have cancelled appointments today, Dove. You’re exhausted,” Win chastised.

  “If I’m tired, just imagine how Dana feels, Win. No rest until we find Sophia’s killer.” I was so distraught about this gun they’d found, I couldn’t concentrate on anything else.

  “Are we sure those blokes said it was Officer Nelson’s? One hundred percent?”

  I nodded, blowing out an anxious breath of air. “I heard the guy who doesn’t look old enough to have graduated the phase of cuddles and warm milk before bed, let alone be a police officer, say they found it at Dana’s. The gun they had matched the kind of gun used to kill Sophia.”

  “And where is Officer Nelson? Why can’t we locate him?”

  “Well, if he knows they found a gun at his house, and it looks like it might be the same gun used to murder Sophia, I’d bet he’s pretty freaked out. So I’m going to hope his not getting in touch with me means he’s flown the coop. He said they’d look at him hard, but I don’t think he thought for one second they’d find anything, let alone a gun.”

  Was that what he’d meant by looking hard at him? Had he, in his rush to cover up a murder, forgotten the murder weapon?

  No. That was absolutely mad. I know I should be looking at all angles, even the possibility that Dana was guilty, but he wasn’t stupid. Being a cop, he’d been around plenty of crime scenes, knew all the ways not to get caught. He’d never leave behind evidence so damning—especially evidence so easily found by two newb cops.

  “No,” Win defended Dana. “Officer Nelson wouldn’t run away. He’s many things, difficult, inflexible, yes. But he’s no coward. Officer Nelson comes from fine stock—fine, honorable stock.”

  I was clinging to that. Clinging so hard my fingers were numb. I hated what this evidence said, what it would do. “Then why was there a gun at his house, Win? The same type of gun used to kill Sophia? A gun Baby-Face says looked like it was recently fired? Whywhywhywhywhy?” I groaned again.

  “I don’t know. Maybe Baby-Face doesn’t know his guns from his arse and he was just speculating. But I can assure you, Officer Nelson is no silly knob. He’s a policeman. Would someone well-versed in crime scenes actually do something as stupid as leave a gun he’d used just lying around so his colleagues could find it? That’s absurd. I’m convinced if that is indeed the gun used to kill Sophia, it was a plant.”

  I checked my phone for the hundredth time in an hour to see if Dana had texted me something—anything. But there was nothing. “I just don’t know what to think anymore, Win. You’re right; it’s too obvious, just leaving evidence like that lying around. But who would frame Dana for murder?”

  “I don’t know, Dove. What I do know, is we have an appointment with Merrily Watson in five minutes. Can you devote your full attention to her needs or will you lose focus with Officer Nelson weighing so heavily on your mind?”

  I raised a tired hand and readjusted my turban. “I’ll be fine. She should be easy enough. She just wants to contact her sister Hester about some recipe for blueberry jam she can’t seem to locate.”

  The town’s end-of-summer fair was coming up, and the Watson sisters (who’d quite rebelliously, some would say scandalously, kept their maiden names even after marriage) made jam that was always a huge hit. They never failed to sell out. Since Hester Watson died, Merrily had floundered without her sister’s assistance in the kitchen.

  The grand prize at the fair was at stake, an all-expense-paid vacation to Maui and two thousand dollars. And even though Merrily very loudly proclaimed she thought all mediums like me were the devil incarnate, she’d broken in her desperation to claim the grand prize she considered rightfully hers.

  “All right then, while we have a few minutes, have you looked Sophia up on Google?”

  “Got that covered, Winterbutt,” Belfry twittered. “Not a whole lot about her. In fact, almost nothing at all. Not even a Facebook page. No pictures of her or anything either, but she’s on LinkedIn as a librarian. She just turned thirty last month. Graduated high school in 2003, went to some online college to get her librarian’s degree. Likes hiking, glassblowing, romantic comedies, and cooking. Loves to read, especially spy novels like Clancy and such.”

  “She doesn’t have a Facebook page?” I asked, astonished. “Who doesn’t have a Facebook page these days? Even Officer Nelson has a Facebook page.”

  “I don’t have a Facebook page.”

  “That’s because you’re dead, Winterbutt,” Bel teased.

  “Maybe that was what Sophia was going to tell Dana—why she wouldn’t accept his proposal?”

  “Because she didn’t have a Facebook page? That’s hardly a reason not to marry a bloke, Stevie.”

  “No. I mean, maybe she was hiding something? Everyone I know, even Chester, has a Facebook page. She’s young. She grew up in the era of social media just like me. Maybe there was a reason she didn’t have one.”

  “A valid point, indeed. One certainly worth looking into.”

  “When we’re done with Merrily, maybe we should pay a visit to Sophia’s apartment? I’m sure t
he police have searched it, but I just feel like if I can absorb some of her vibe, get a feel for who she was privately, maybe I’ll be able to find some answers.”

  “That’s those witch powers comin’ back, Boss,” Bel encouraged. “Told ya that farthead wasn’t gonna win.”

  Whiskey barked his approval.

  I chuckled. The farthead Bel was referring to was Adam Westfield, the man responsible for stealing my powers in the first place. A dead but still powerful warlock, who also took a run at taking me out just a couple of months ago.

  If not for my mother, Dita, he’d have succeeded. I still can’t believe my mom saved me, but she had. Worse, I can’t believe I underestimated Adam Westfield’s wish to see me vanquished. He was playing for keeps. I shuddered to think what would happen to me if he managed to get me into the afterlife.

  But he hadn’t totally won. I’d been having spurts of my old powers flash in and out, and one of those powers, the ability to feel a person’s emotions, all part of being a good medium, had popped back up recently. It was hit or miss, but it was worth a shot.

  The chimes on the front door jangled, indicating Merrily Watson must have arrived, but instead I found Liza, the amazing recent college graduate who ran my store, smiling down at me.

  I love Liza. She’s colorful and cheerful and her heart is made of pure gold. She’s who keeps this place running, especially during a busy summer like we’d had this year.

  Liza is Madam Zoltar’s granddaughter, and remains one of my favorite people in the whole world.

  She cocked her red, spiky head and patted my hand. “You look exhausted, Stevie,” she sympathized, pulling out a chair next to me to sit down. “I can cancel with Merrily, if you want to sneak out the back.”

  But I dismissed her notion I was tired. “Nah. I’m fine. Listen, quick question about Sophia.”

  Her eyes instantly went watery beneath her blue eyeliner. “Dang, sorry,” she apologized, swiping her thumb under her eye. “I really loved Sophia. I can’t even begin to tell you the kind of help she was when I was studying for my degree. As you know, I was really stressed when my grandmother died, and she was always ready to help find books I needed for a paper I was working on. I can’t believe someone would…”