I toyed briefly with the idea of just riding back home and curling up with Luna and Lucy to enjoy what little was left of my rare day off. I could boil some soothing chamomile tea, eat some cheese, and listen to music. Or I could pour a glass of wine and settle down on the couch to watch television. I could take a long, hot bath and read a book. There were so many tempting options, all of which sounded much more enjoyable than being out here in the cold, chasing down what could be leads or what could just be more dead ends. For no pay. It wasn’t like I was on the police department’s payroll. This was purely a volunteer-only situation.
What on earth was wrong with me?
I thought it over, but ultimately decided that my intense curiosity wasn’t going to cut me any slack on this one. Sure, it was cold and uncomfortable. Interviewing complete strangers was never going to be a carousel of fun. And yes, I was doing it all for free. But I knew I couldn’t back out now. Not now that Xander made it clear that he actually expected me to be of assistance to him. Hearing him tell me that I was a valuable resource, that we were working together as a team, well, it was enough to make me forget all about the cold.
Besides, I liked Lucy, and I thought she deserved to know who had attacked her owner.
It only took me about ten minutes to ride over to Vince’s neighborhood. The address on the business card Bridget gave me was a vaguely familiar one. It wasn’t far from a house I used to visit when I was a kid. Diana, Elisa, Bella, and I had all been babysat on occasion by the same sweet old woman called Petunia, and she used to live on the same street. That was years and years ago, but the neighborhood still felt like home in some small way. I rode up to the house number on the business card, beginning to feel quite nervous. I had never met Vince Bryan before, and I had no idea what I was in for now. Would he be angry? Heartbroken? Maybe, if he was as bad as Bridget’s tone indicated, he would even be smug about Arianna’s death. I shuddered, hoping that last scenario wasn’t true. Even after a messy breakup, a guy couldn’t possibly be pleased to find out that his ex-girlfriend was killed. Right?
The house was similar to Bridget’s in that it was both a private residence and a workshop, except that while Bridget’s shop was out front, attached to the house, Vince’s shop appeared to be in the backyard. It was a large shed with wide windows, and from the angle I stood at in the street out front, I could just make out the sounds and sights of a pottery workshop. There was the distinctive smell of wet clay in the air - a smell I might never have recognized if not for my mother’s brief obsession with pottery a while back. I bit my lip nervously, wondering how I ought to go about getting Vince’s attention. Then I caught sight of a side entrance to the backyard, with a little makeshift sign that read: BRYANT CLAYWORKS, LLC. Ah. A business entrance. Perfect.
Leaning my broom against the fence, I opened the gate, following down a short, winding path of quartz stones on the mossy ground which led up to the front door of the shed. Hesitating for just a moment, I gathered the courage to knock at the door, gritting my teeth as I waited for a response. The sounds of pottery throwing dissipated into silence, there was a murmur of low male voices, and then footsteps. Through the side window I saw a scrawny, pasty-skinned guy with dark hair skulking toward the door. I gulped back my nerves as he opened it and blinked at me confusedly. He didn’t seem particularly bright.
“Are you Vince Bryant?” I asked, surprised at how calm my voice sounded.
The guy snorted and shook his head. “Nah. I’m Nathaniel.”
“Oh,” I said, crestfallen. “Do you happen to know where I could find Mr. Bryant?”
Nathaniel smirked, then turned and yelled into the building. “Vince! You got a customer!”
“Oh, I’m not a-” I began, but let my voice trail off. It didn’t matter. In fact, Vince would probably be more likely to let me in if he was under the impression I was there to buy something. Moments later, a much taller and broad-shouldered guy came up to the door. He was wearing a filthy apron caked with sticky clay and paint. He looked me up and down, then waved his hand for me to come inside.
“Come in. You here to buy?” he asked. “I have some new products finished just last week. I’m experimenting with a new process and these are hot off the press. Brand-new. Nobody else has anything like it, I swear.”
“Actually,” I began, wincing a little in anticipation of his mood changing, “I was wondering if I could talk to you about something.”
Vince stopped and turned to look at me, his muscular arms folding over his chest. Nathaniel sidled up next to him. The pair of them looked like a bizarre couple of cowboys or something. I got the sense they were already halfway to guessing why I was really there.
Vince sighed. “This is about Arianna, isn’t it?”
I gave him an apologetic smile. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”
“So you have no interest in pottery?” Nathaniel sneered.
“I mean, I don’t dislike pottery,” I said, shrugging. “It’s just not my reason for showing up here today.”
Nathaniel rolled his eyes and walked over to slump down on a bean bag chair, playing with a hacky-sack, twirling it in the air with magic.
“So. You’re not a cop, obviously. If you were, you wouldn’t be dressed like that. If you’re not a cop, what makes you think you have the right to question me about my ex-girlfriend?” Vincent asked.
“Well, it is a free country,” I reasoned, appealing to what I assumed would be his devil-may-care side. “So I can ask whatever I want. Of course, you also have the right to refuse to answer me. But like you said, I’m not a cop. I can’t arrest you or even name you as a suspect. I’m just a concerned citizen who’s looking for answers.”
Vincent narrowed his eyes, mulling over my words as he stared me down. I tried to stay strong.
Finally, he shrugged. “Whatever. Ask away, I have nothing to hide.”
“Okay, cool,” I said, a little too enthusiastically. “Uh, so, you and Arianna broke up. What happened?”
Vince walked over to the unfinished vase he was working on when I interrupted his day.
“Vorsoroa,” he whispered, and the clay shape began spinning. Stepping back a few feet, he began moving his hands as though he was sculpting it. Even though he wasn’t touching the vase, it was as if he was - it morphed and smoothed and shaped itself into a vase as it spun.
“Vince?” I asked, prompting him for an answer.
“Yes. We broke up. And it was her fault. She’s the one who cheated on me,” he said.
“Was it a difficult breakup?” I asked. He shot me a withering glare.
“Of course it was. She broke my damn heart. I loved that girl more than anything in the world and she treated me like crap,” he growled. “She betrayed me.”
“Told you she wasn’t worth it. Just a pretty face, nothing more,” Nathaniel interjected. Vince turned and tossed a lump of wet clay at him and he flinched as it splattered on his shirt. “Hey!”
“No one cares what you think,” Vince hissed at him.
“Who is that guy, if you mind my asking?” I said quietly.
Vince hooked a thumb in Nathaniel’s direction. “Who? Him? He’s just some guy I knew from school. We were all in the same class together. Me, him, and Arianna. And Jackson.”
“So he’s a friend?” I asked.
He wrinkled his nose. “I guess so. More like an annoying acquaintance. We go way back, and he’s been having trouble getting his life together, so I agreed to let him help out around the shop until he gets back on his feet.”
“That’s kind of you,” I remarked. Vince shrugged.
“I guess. He’s frigging useless, though,” he said loudly.
“I heard that!” Nathaniel whined.
“No one cares,” Vince shot back. He looked at me. “So, what other questions do you have?”
“Oh. Um, I was wondering: you and Jackson. Are you good friends?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah, man. Jackson’s a good guy. We’ve been best friends since w
e were little kids. Small town like this, your friendships last forever. We’ve been buddies since we were two toddlers in a sandbox.”
“That’s sweet,” I said, smiling. “How did Jackson feel about your breakup with his sister? I imagine that made things pretty awkward.”
“Yeah. He was on my side, you know. Jackson and Arianna were always close, but they butted heads sometimes, too. Like most siblings. And when she cheated on me, he was pissed. He knew it was messed up, what she did to me.”
“So he was angry with her?” I inquired, making note of everything mentally.
“Hell, yeah. Jackson knows me better than anyone. He knew how much I loved Arianna, how I took such good care of her,” he explained. “They fought about it.”
“Was it a bad fight?” I asked.
“Dunno. I wasn’t there. I just know he said he was going to call her and talk some sense into her. But that was the last I heard,” he said.
“So you haven’t talked to Jackson today?” I asked.
“Nope. I figure if he wants someone to talk to, he’ll call me. Jackson is a tough dude. He likes to handle things on his own,” Vince said. I frowned, confused at this characterization of Jackson Long. It didn’t fit with the image of him crying into his hands at the Academy this morning. Something was off here. Which version of him was real?
“Did you see Arianna recently? You know, before it happened?” I asked.
“No. It’s been several days since I saw her,” he said, clenching his fists suddenly. The vase, which had been so close to being finished, exploded in sloppy shards of un-set clay. I yelped and jumped backward. Nathaniel swore and covered his head with his arms, but Vince just stood there, his chest heaving.
He looked over at me with red cheeks, as though he was summoning every ounce of strength not to cry.
“And now I’ll never see her again.”
“I’m sorry,” I told him earnestly. “I know this is hard. I just have one more question and then I’ll leave.”
“Okay. Shoot,” he grumbled.
“Where were you at the time of the murder?” I asked meekly, afraid to piss him off.
He looked over at me with anger and sadness in his eyes. “I don’t have an alibi if that’s what you’re asking. I was here, alone, in the shop this morning. I can’t prove it, but I was here. I swear.”
Chapter 10
I’d had enough of artists to last me the whole week, I thought to myself as I glided back to the B&B and hopped off my broom. Rubbing my temples, I made my way up the path to the front door. After all that fooling around with experimental designs and magical sculpting, at least there was something nice, cozy, and familiar about the same old house I was used to coming home to.
“Arti Arti Arti!” Luna cried, bounding toward me with her ears back and her tail flicking. “Emergency inside!”
My eyes widened as my pulse quickened, my mind racing with a hundred different horrible scenarios, most of which included Lucy being the next murder victim at the paws of Luna.
When I threw the door open and rushed inside, what I saw was far, far worse.
Robin’s egg blue. Everywhere.
My jaw dropped.
To the casual observer, the plaster walls of the B&B had been a nice shade of white. But what I was looking at now was nothing short of a crime against the hospitality industry as a whole.
“Luna,” I asked slowly, glaring at that blue mockery that still smelled like it was freshly applied all around me. “How did this happen?”
“It wasn’t my fault!” Luna protested, tail flicking as she sat beside me and pressed close against my leg. “It was-”
“Hi, honey!” my mother chimed from the kitchen, sweeping into the living room with a bright smile on her face and a gesture to the walls all around us. “Surprise! What do you think?”
I was dumbfounded as I stared at my mom, then at the walls again, then back to her.
“Mom, how could you?” I started to ask, personally offended that anyone on earth or the moon could possibly think that robin’s egg blue was a respectable color for the entire wall. It was such an overpowering color.
“What’s the matter, dear?” she asked, tilting her head to the side. “Don’t you like it?”
Lucy meowed nearby, and Luna gave her a disgusted look. “What do you mean, you think it looks good? What kind of uncultured interior designers do they have in Hollywood, or wherever you’re from?”
Lucy gave an indignant flick of her tail while I shook my head vigorously, striding into the room and waving my arms around at the walls.
“Absolutely not, mom,” I said firmly, shaking my head. “Listen. I love you as your daughter and as a person, but come on! Seriously? It looks like Alice in Wonderland is about to set up and have a tea part here, or something.”
“What’s the matter with it, honey?” she asked, tilting her head to the side. She was wearing a painting smock that had a few paint stains on it, and I could see the roller on the kitchen counter behind her. The murder weapon that killed this house.
I sighed. “It’s so incredibly overpowering. I’m getting a headache just looking at it. It’s a shade for cartoons, not for the living room walls.”
Mom gave me a judicious look for a few long, hard seconds, and I stared right back, as if our wills were battling. Finally, she cracked a smile and gave a single chuckle.
“Hm. Well done,” she said, and I frowned in confusion.
“Wait, what?”
“Pigmentis redeoroa,” mom cried, with a wave of her finger and a flourish, and the hideous color flew off the walls like a sheet, melting through the air to meet in the center of the room. Swirling like a little vortex above the coffee table for a moment, eventually a thin trail shot back to the bucket of paint in the kitchen, where it took all of five seconds to pour itself back into its container. When it was all over, the walls were back to their old color, and a wave of relief washed over me.
Aesthetic harmony was restored, and it felt so much better.
“That was a test, young lady,” Mom said as she muttered a quick spell to chase off the smattering of paint from her smock.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I replied, looking at her as if she was about to pull a knife out from behind her back and try to murder me.
“Nope!” she chimed, perfectly chipper as she strode around the room with her hands on her hips. “I’m sorry to scare you, honey, but if you’re going to be changing things up with my baby here, I need to make sure you have decent taste. Now, to be fair, this was probably the nicest possible shade I could have picked, so you got off easy. I was going to throw you for a real curveball with a certain shade of red in the kitchen, but your father insisted I be nice.”
I think I owed my dad some thanks.
“Okay,” I said, flopping down on a couch, Luna immediately hopping into my lap and curling up into a ball, traumatized. “You realize that’s not normal, right? That’s not a thing sane people do?”
“Artemis Mani,” she started in her sternest mothering tone. “You’re a member of a very proud coven that does not tolerate bad fashion, and more importantly, this house is what represents us to the rest of the town. We have to be careful about this kind of thing. If that means being a little harsh, so be it. You do remember your sister’s first city council meeting where they fielded complaints from the community, don’t you?”
I rolled my eyes. I remembered Mom being in the audience, grilling my poor sister – the newly elected mayor - with the most grating, niggling, difficult questions and complaints about the city’s maintenance possible. It was humiliating, but at least it braced her for the rest of her term.
“I do, and I’m sure her therapist has heard about it, too,” I replied with a grin.
Luna glanced over at Lucy, who was staring at us pointedly as Mom went back into the kitchen to get her bucket.
“Lucy wants to know if you’ve got anything new on Lara,” she said, flicking an ear.
“Nothing
yet, sorry,” I said, and Lucy meowed at me indignantly. “Hey, I’m working on it, okay? I’ve been wrangling with artists all day. Ones that suddenly seem a lot more normal than I thought, now that I put it in perspective,” I added as I glared at mom.
Mom rolled her eyes at me and waved a dismissive hand. “You’ll thank me when the compliments start rolling in from all your guests, trust me.”
“Goodbye, Mom,” I said pointedly as she ruffled my hair on her way toward the door, and as soon as it shut behind her, I groaned.
“So what’s next, detective?” Luna asked, kneading my leg a little. “High-speed broom chase after a suspect? Dimly-lit interrogation? Piecing all the clues together?”
“I’m thinking a cup of hot chocolate with a little whisky in it, plus a nice book, and a bath,” I replied, letting myself melt into the couch a little further.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Luna said, sitting up. “But first, how about some dinner?”
Chapter 11
I woke up the next morning with an ominous feeling in my gut. The sun was just barely filtering through the clouds, the snowy-white sky and icy landscape doing nothing to make me feel less uncomfortable. I was filled with this weird sense of foreboding, like something bad was going to happen today. I quietly got out of bed, putting on my slippers as I crossed the room to the en suite bathroom. Luna poked her head out from under the sheets and came pitter-pattering after me.
“What happened to the warmth?” Luna muttered sleepily. I flicked on the bathroom lights to see that Lucy was curled up in the bathtub, looking forlorn.
“Oh, sweetheart,” I cooed, kneeling down to pet her as she stretched out and yawned. To my surprise, she rolled over on her back so I could scratch her fluffy stomach. “You didn’t have to sleep in this cold bathtub all by yourself last night.” Luna mewed at me despondently in reply.
Thank my Lucky Spells: A Paranormal Cozy Mystery (Moonlight Cove Mystery Book 3) Page 7
