Graves and Goons (A Hocus Pocus Cozy Witch Mystery Series Book 4)

by Constance Barker

  The ball of paper narrowly missed the basket. Celestial slumped; her terrible aim was legendary at family hoops parties when she was young. She walked over to pick it up just as the doorbell jangled to announce a customer.

  Celestial looked up with her usual welcoming smile to see Reverend Younger standing inside the doorway. Her smile slipped and she squeezed the paper ball in her hand a little tighter.

  “Reverend Younger,” she managed, “how can I help you?”

  The Reverend looked briefly at her clenched fist before collecting himself. “I wanted to invite you to the ice cream social at the church. I don’t know if you’ve heard about it but I thought I would make the rounds to the local stores in town and extend a personal invitation.” He glanced again at the screwed up ball of paper in her hand. There was a small picture of an ice-cream cone on an exposed section of the flyer.

  Celestial cleared her throat and dropped the paper into the basket. “Well, that’s certainly very kind of you Reverend but I don’t go in for big social events very much.”

  Younger held her gaze before producing a smile which didn’t reach his eyes. “I suppose most witches are averse to going to events at the church. You never know what might happen.”

  Celestial knitted her eyebrows in confusion. “What exactly do you mean?”

  It was the Reverend’s turn to look puzzled. “Oh I ... sorry just a general statement.”

  “Oh,” Celestial shrugged her shoulders. “Anyway thank you for inviting me. Maybe next time.”

  The Reverend attempted another smile before leaving.

  ***

  Later that day Tamara, Dakota and Athena popped in to see Celestial and asked her if she was going to the church social.

  “Why is everyone so concerned whether or not I go to the church to eat ice cream?”

  Dakota placed his hands on his hips and wrinkled his nose. “You do like ice cream don’t you?”

  “Yes of course I do,” she replied. “I’m assuming ice cream isn’t code for something else,” she said, flicking her eyebrows at him.

  Dakota shook his head in despair. “Not in a church! I think we can safely assume that when the church social says ice cream, they mean ice cream.”

  Athena buzzed into the conversation. “Normally yes, but this church has some devilish characters with questionable ethics; namely the Reverend James Younger!”

  Tamara, Dakota and Celestial laughed.

  “Well I’m going,” said Tamara. With her penchant for sugar, no one was surprised at her enthusiasm.

  “Me too,” said Dakota. “I’m going to try every flavor they have.”

  Celestial looked at him with her eyebrows raised. “Do you remember the last time you did that?”

  Dakota placed his forefinger on his chin. He thought for a second before shooting up in realization. “Oh my goodness, brain freeze!”

  “Yes,” said Celestial. “You didn’t stop moaning about it for weeks.

  Tamara and Athena giggled as Dakota performed a brain-freeze face for them.

  “Anyway,” continued Celestial, “I don’t think any of you should go. You do realize there is a sneaky murderer running amuck around the town?”

  Her three friends groaned in unison.

  “But Stella and Bella are going to be there,” Dakota commented. “If we don’t go we’ll all have to listen to them telling us what happened in a minute-by-minute rundown.”

  Tamara nodded at Celestial. “Yes, plus isn’t it better that we’re all together in the same place as the suspects? We can keep an eye on them.”

  Athena and Dakota nodded enthusiastically.

  Celestial sighed. What was the point in arguing?

  * * *

  The church grounds were buzzing with parishioners and local townsfolk. The smell of flowers growing in the well-tended gardens was masked by the sugary scent of cotton candy. There was a machine to one side where Delia Kane was desperately trying to get to grips with wrapping the candy around a small child’s ice-cream cone.

  There was a red and white striped tent which held a bar area serving tea and cakes on one side and on the other was a large counter containing about twenty different flavors of ice-cream.

  Tamara and Dakota walked around the garden and each got a tub of ice cream containing three of their favorite flavors. Athena buzzed on Tamara’s shoulder until she scooped a little onto her finger and held it discreetly for her to eat.

  Dakota nudged Tamara as they walked around. “Look there’s the Rev over there cooking on the grill. Have you seen any of the others?”

  Tamara looked around and shook her head. “I expect they’ll be here soon. I wish Celestial had come.”

  “Me too.”

  They wandered over to the grill where the Reverend was holding court with some of his flock.

  “You see there is a way to barbeque without making everyone sick. You just need to cook the chicken in the oven first,” he said waving his spatula in the air.

  A large man with a strawberry-like nose held his hand up to speak. The Reverend bobbed his head in his direction.

  “Isn’t the point of barbequing so you don’t have to cook indoors?”

  There was a collection of nods from the audience.

  The Reverend laughed. “Yes, Alan, I do see your point. Of course the other way is to make sure you have a shelf like this one here to cook your meat more slowly.” He pointed to the cooling rack above the plate.“And of course when setting up your grill,” he continued, “you must ensure that you do so in an open area away from trees and bushes.”

  More nods from the people watching.

  “The Reverend certainly knows a lot about barbeques,” said Dakota.

  Tamara sneered. “It’s like he’s giving one of his sermons.”

  Dakota sniggered and the Reverend continued preaching.

  “And of course the most important thing to remember is never set up your grill in an enclosed space; even if there is plenty of room around you otherwise the carbon dioxide could kill you.”

  Alan looked puzzled. The Reverend clarified.

  “Carbon dioxide is odorless and colorless; if you turn the gas on but forget to turn on the burners, you will get a build up of carbon dioxide and you could die.”

  Tamara and Dakota slowly turned their head to look at each other.

  Chapter 23

  Early the next morning, Celestial woke up to a steady, pulsing ache in her head. Dizzily, she tried to sit up but found it more difficult than she’d expected, and for a moment she fell again to the side, drawing in deep, gasping breaths and bracing herself. Then, gripping the headboard, she pulled herself to an upright position, and slid as carefully as she could out of bed and onto her feet, still steadying herself with her hands.

  In her bedside table, she kept a packet of herbs--feverfew, peppermint, and a pinch of valerian--that would help with her headaches. She stumbled to the drawer where she kept this packet stored, then made her way to the bathroom in search of water. It was best to take these particular herbs mixed into tea, but she was in a lot of pain and figured a little cold water was better than nothing. She found herself leaning slightly against the wall as she went.

  She had just turned into the bathroom and raised her hand to the lightswitch when Athena’s voice called out, sharp and urgent, “Don’t! Don’t turn on the light! Celestial, you have to get out of the house!”

  “What?” Celestial asked, still bleary-eyed, cognition slowed by her pounding head. Athena was zipping frantically through the air in her direction. “Athena, what’s happening?”

  “Just hurry!”

  Something about the fear in Athena’s voice woke Celestial up. She let Athena lead her down the stairs, where suddenly she could smell quite distinctly the pervading odor of natural gas filling the air.

  “I saw that all of the burners on the stove have been turned on,” Athena said, voice wavering. “And the flames burned out. You’ve gotta turn off the burners, maybe open a couple of wi
ndows.”

  Celestial did as Athena directed, finding it easier to think and act now that she was in motion. As soon as she had switched off all the burners and rapidly wrenched open the two windows in the kitchen and a few more in the living room, she and Athena went rushing out the front door and into the mercifully clear, fresh air of the garden.

  “Someone must have done this,” Celestial said once she had taken a few bracing breaths and cleaned out that gripping feeling in her chest. Even her headache was starting to abate, ever so slightly. “Come on, Athena, let’s check to see if any of the windows were unlocked.”

  She knew the ones she had just opened had been locked through the night, as she’d had to unlock them just a few minutes ago. Rounding the house, with Athena hovering at her shoulder, she tested what others could be reached from the ground floor. She needn’t have bothered, though; once she made her way around the back of the house, she saw that the lock on the low window leading into the ground-floor bathroom had been broken, pried open forcibly.

  * * *

  Five minutes later she was on the phone with Nikoli, bringing him up to speed about this morning’s rude awakening.

  “If it weren’t for Athena, I’d be char-grilled, Nikoli!” she said, trying not to sound hysterical.

  Now that her headache-relieving herbs were kicking in, she felt oddly calm about it, but Nikoli was anything but. “If your burners were blown out,” Nikoli said, voice terse, “that meant that any little spark could have caused a massive explosion. It was a miracle you hadn’t lost consciousness from all that gas.”

  “More like gained consciousness,” she said. “My head was hurting so badly, I think that’s what woke me up.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “In my back garden.”

  “Keep an eye out, will you? It’s possible whoever did this is nearby right now, keeping an eye out to see whether their plan worked.”

  “You think they’d really want to be nearby if they thought the house was about to go bonfire?”

  “I’d say it’s best to err on the side of safety,” said Nikoli wryly. His voice was just returning to its usual pitch and pace. He must have been really scared for me, Celestial found herself thinking. “Okay, so this clearly has to do with the case. Have you been scaring anyone lately, Celestial? Making them think you might be onto them?”

  “Only everyone,” Celestial said, racking her brains.

  “Fine, but, anyone more than usual? Who have you been focusing on most lately?”

  She considered. “Jolene, I guess. Because of the will, and asking around about her at all those businesses in town. Also, there are those letters I stole from her desk, which I think someone else might have been looking for, too. That could have something to do with it.”

  “The letters. Right. From B.”

  “Yes. I’ve been thinking that maybe Jolene had intended to leave her fortune to the mysterious B instead of to the Ladies Morality Society. But the will still named Joseph as the inheritor. So maybe he killed her before she had the opportunity to change it either way.”

  “I think it’s important that we don’t out-and-out accuse anyone until we’ve got sturdier proof than that,” Nikoli advised. He must have been feeling much calmer now, if he was pulling out his professional admonishing tone. “We don’t want to shut ourselves off to all the possibilities, and end up missing the big picture.”

  “I know, I know,” Celestial said. “I was only speculating.” In fact, she thought she could use a little more speculation--and not to mention, a little bit of tea. Since she wouldn’t be using her stove at home anytime soon, she thought fondly of the kettle at her shop. “Hey, call if you need me? I’m going to get away from the house, head into the store.”

  Chapter 24

  By the time Celestial had waited for the air to clear, headed back into her house to get dressed and grab the other things she would need for the day, and then poofed to the shop, it was still about twenty minutes before the store’s usual opening hour. As she set about brewing herself some tea, she dipped her nose now and then into the little sachets of dried herbs she kept, hoping to rid her nose of that horrible gas smell.

  “Celestial,” Athena called, buzzing near the front window, “there’s someone at the door.”

  “This early?” Celestial had been enjoying the peace and quiet. “I’m sure they won’t mind waiting.”

  “It’s Sofia,” Athena said. “She looks really upset.”

  In an instant, Celestial found herself at the front door, unlocking it and waving Sofia in.

  “I’m so sorry to bother you like this again,” Sofia said. She looked to Celestial like she probably hadn’t slept a wink last night. “I know it’s a huge bother, and I wouldn’t normally want to be any trouble, especially not to you….”

  “It’s no trouble at all,” Celestial insisted, helping Sofia to the stool behind the counter and pressing her shoulder so that she would sit down. Today, Sofia was wearing an eggplant-colored blouse tucked into a long yellow floral skirt, strangely out of alignment with her agitated, depressed attitude; then again, Celestial considered, these might well have been the most somber clothes Sofia owned. “Just tell me what’s going on.”

  “It’s just those horrible rumors--they won’t stop!” Sofia sobbed. “Not only are people accusing me of… of m-murdering those women, but now, no one is buying my honey! Even the folks at the corner store said they didn’t have a new order for me today, and they’ve been regulars for years. This is my main source of income, Celestial. I don’t know how I’m supposed to support myself if things keep up like this.”

  Not for the first time, Celestial strongly wished she could fill Sofia in on the facts of the case. Sofia would be so relieved to hear that the forensics lab had exonerated her honey! But it was a very, very bad idea to share insider details like those with someone who might be a suspect. And even if Celestial didn’t particularly consider Sofia suspicious in this case, it was important to keep in mind the fact that the police still had her named as a person of interest. And also that the police had their reasons for continuing to hide the true cause of the women’s deaths from the general public.

  Until the public knows how those women really died, Sofia is just going to keep suffering, Celestial thought. It’s time we get to the bottom of this.

  * * *

  After Sofia had gone, Celestial called all her friends into the shop so that they could talk it through together.

  “Are you all right, Celestial?” Dakota asked, worry lining his eyes. “I can’t imagine what life would be like if something happened to you.”

  Celestial found it was sometimes useful to use her friends as a sounding-board, to hear their thoughts and theories and the connections they’d managed to make. Not to mention, she happened to have some of the nosiest people in town in her immediate friend group; she was sometimes surprised at the information they knew that nobody else, not even the police, could manage to dig up.

  “First of all,” said Dakota, still nursing an injured elbow from his botched attempt at apparating in, which had landed him partway in a display of dried herb bundles. “I don’t think a single one of us believes Sofia did it.”

  Celestial looked around at her gathered friends: they all shook their heads and made various noises of agreement.

  “Okay,” said Celestial. “So who do we think it was?”

  “I’d say the Reverend,” Athena piped up. “He’s local. More likely to actually know where you live, Celestial. Plus, he knows--or thinks he knows, or thinks he thinks, at least--that you’re a witch, which he completely hates. And lets not forget that someone tried to blow up your house. You heard him where he knew all about gas grills and whatnot.”

  “He did see me when I was...investigating...in his house,” Celestial mused.

  “I second that,” said Dakota. “I don’t trust that Reverend at all.”

  “The way he looked at me when he came into the store afterwards. It was lik
e he had murder in his eyes,” Celestial said. “I’m never going to be in the same room with him. Ever. But that still doesn’t explain why he would murder those four ladies.”

  “We think it’s Joseph Bennett,” Stella contributed. “There’s too much at stake in Jolene Bennett’s will. And that family seems like it was seriously troubled.”

  Bella nodded her agreement with her sister’s theory.

  “I think it was both of them, working together,” Tamara said. “You folks didn’t see them at lunch at the diner. They were thick as thieves. And haven’t they each warned you off of pursuing the other one, Celestial? Why would either of them do that if they were the culprit, unless they were working together, and were worried that if you found out about one of them it would lead you to the other?”

  “There’s also the possibility that the Reverend was acting on both his own and Joseph’s behalf,” Celestial mused. “He is awfully protective of Joseph.”

  “So?” Athena prompted. “Is that what you’re thinking?”

  Celestial considered. She remembered the advice Nikoli had given her during their phone call earlier: it was important not to latch on too hard to any one suspect before there was clear and undeniable proof, because doing so might blind you to the real possibilities. “I think we don’t know enough just yet to say for certain,” she said finally. “But I think I’m going to go talk to Joseph right now. The Reverend’s protectiveness of Joseph might be because Joseph is the murderer, or one of the murderers--or it might mean that Joseph knows something that would incriminate the Reverend. I have a strong feeling there’s more we can learn from him if we just keep at it.”

  * * *

  Joseph still didn’t know she was a witch--or, so she hoped, though she guessed the Reverend might have told him--so Celestial decided to head over to his hotel the long way. It was, after all, only maybe a half a mile’s walk off, and she still felt as though she could use a little fresh air to help clear her head.