Murder, Magic, and Moggies

by Pearl Goodfellow

  “What did she do?” I asked with bated breath.

  “She invoked the Mortis Haereditatem hex. No descendant of the Roach family line can ever inherit a single cent of her estate.”

  “Why not? What are the consequences of the curse?”

  “Death.”

  A death curse. Spithilda’s final kiss-off.

  Goldensealed with a kiss-off.

  Chapter 11

  “A death curse?” Fraidy exclaimed. “That’s paws-itively terrifying!”

  “I’ll just be hiding in the socks if anyone wants me.” He jumped into the full basket of clean socks and buried himself deep.

  I was back at The Angel Apothecary doing laundry. Pairing socks and separating the whites was probably the most mundane and decidedly least magical portion of my life. And I was okay with that. I was also making a new face moisturizing oil. After seeing Druida’s peachy complexion, I couldn’t help but feel I needed to raise the stakes in my own beauty regime. Bring on the oils!

  Face of Silk Potion

  What you’ll need:

  90 ml amber or cobalt glass bottle with pump dispenser.

  Extra Virgin Olive Oil (or untested virgin sesame oil)

  Rosehip Oil

  Argan Oil

  Sweet Almond Oil

  Essential oils of Lavender True (spike will also do) and Frankincense. 10 drops of each.

  Pour olive oil (or whichever base oil you’re using) into the bottle until about the half way mark.

  Fill the rest of the way with a combination of the remaining oils, in which ever proportions you prefer. Be aware, that rosehip oil is slightly red in color, so the more you add, the redder the potion.

  10 drops of lavender and 12 drops of frankincense. Shake well.

  Can be used as a night oil, so you don’t go out into the day greased up. I use it for mornings too. The oil sinks in pretty well, and it’s just so gosh darn nutritive and moisturizing. The very best way to apply this oil is to smooth it on warm, damp skin. It soaks in so much easier this way, and you can be confident that it’s penetrating the epidermis.

  Going back to Druida. My talk with her had been enlightening, but also incredibly disappointing. I don’t know what I had expected to discover. Some cleverly concealed fact that would point to a definitive suspect in Spithilda’s murder? I mentally ran through the list of suspects that the Chief and I had gathered over the course of our investigation. I was determined to review each one in turn and look at their motive, means, and opportunity.

  “This is terrible! I’m going to die!” The sudden, worrisome prophecy temporarily interrupted my mental detecting. Generally, I’d have expected such a morbid avowal to come from Fraidy, but this time it came from my normally hot-to-trot kitty. But, ever since Millie’s special du jour, Carbon had been groaning and belly-aching around the shop.

  “Oh, give it a rest, will ya? You’re not going to die. You can’t. You’re immortal,” I quipped back. “But, if you don’t get a grip on that internal boiler of yours, you are going to need to find a new place to live soon. I don’t have enough money in the store budget to replace another set of curtains.”

  The poor puss had, true to Onyx’s word, been burping fireballs randomly and with some frequency. Usually with absolutely no warning whatsoever. The parlor curtains upstairs had been first to go, but the front shop window panels and then the storeroom drapes had quickly followed suit. I’m pretty sure he even caught the back hem of Millie’s dress unless a reverse hi-lo hem was the new fashion and I somehow missed the memo. I leaned from the laundry room for a peek.

  Yup. Charred as charcoal. He’d gotten her.

  “Millie? Do we have any Cronewort left? ” Good old Artemesia Vulgaris was a herb on the list of digestive aids. Grammy Chimera used to give it to me after I’d been a little too over-indulgent with her snickerdoodles. I thought it might help Carbon’s upset stomach as well. I knew we didn’t have Goldenseal in supply right now, but Cronewort should do the trick. Well, that and it might help save the living room curtains while I still had some. And Millie’s wardrobe.

  “I think so, Hattie. Lemme run downstairs and check.” I could hear the rapid patter of her feet down the stairs as she went to check the store’s inventory. Carbon padded after her, eager to get some relief. A few minutes passed as I filled the old tea kettle with cold water from the kitchen sink and put it on the back burner of the stove. I gave the gas knob a clever twist and a brilliant orange and blue flame erupted under the kettle.

  “YEOW!” Millie’s startled voice echoed all the way back up the stairs. I winced. Oh dear. I’m guessing the stove wasn’t the only thing that had just flamed.

  Sure enough, Millie came back to the laundry room, Mason jar in hand, and now sporting a smoking mini-skirt. She stiff-armed the jar in my direction.

  “This had better work, otherwise the Chief’s gonna cite me for indecent exposure.”

  I tried very hard to suppress a chuckle. “Go in my closet, Millie. I’m sure I have something you can borrow.”

  I measured out a few teaspoons of the dried Cronewort into a tea ball and grabbed a mug from the kitchen cabinet. Millie plodded off toward my bedroom to try and find a replacement for her singed skirt.

  While I waited for the kettle to give its shrill little whistle, I let my mind drift back to the case and our list of suspects.

  First, there was Violet, owner of the Glessie’s Glamour Emporium. The self-professed coiffeuse readily admitted there was no love lost between her and Spithilda. Spithilda held the deed to Violet’s business and had recently threatened to close Violet’s shop. So, Violet certainly had motive. Next question. Did she have the means?

  Well, nothing Chief Trew and I had uncovered thus far indicated whether she did or she didn’t. Maude’s autopsy revealed that Spithilda had succumbed to toxins that were found in the pokeberry plant. Although Violet had mentioned she was very proud that all the products in her salon were derived from natural products and were 100% cruelty-free, it was unlikely that she’d include pokeberry on her list of “natural” ingredients given its toxicity level. So, jury was still out on means. I rifled through the basket and pinched a fuzzy, blue sock between my fingers.

  So, did she have opportunity then? Even if she didn’t carry pokeberry products in her shop, I supposed Violet could have acquired pokeberry through some other venue. If so, then had she had the opportunity to dispense the lethal dose? Her alibi was shaky at best. Rad Silverback had only been with her part of the night Spithilda was found dead. Not to mention, she easily could have poisoned Spithilda earlier in the day. The cold, unforgiving temps out in The Humps had muddled Maude’s time of death window.

  I paused to paw through the basket, desperately searching for the other blue sock. No dice.

  Grr. What the?

  I tried matching a standard white one. My brain kept spinning.

  I ran through the interview the Chief and I held with Violet outside her shop. What was it she had said? Oh, yes. She had traveled out to The Humps to try and deliver Remulus to Spithilda after he had been groomed for The Mutley Crew Gala. That’s when Spithilda had gotten so incensed about the pink bows Violet had put on the dog. That was certainly an opportunity. What I needed to do there was determine if Violet had gained access to pokeberries recently. I made a mental note.

  The next person, er, wolf -person (Gless Isle was still a little fuzzy on politically correct terminology) on the suspect list was Rad Silverback. He definitely had reason to despise Spithilda, if not to want her permanently wiped out. Until Spithilda’s curse, Rad had led a relatively carefree life, enjoying the luxuries his father’s wealth afforded him. Even after he had broken up with Spithilda, he had looked forward to continuing a life of affluence and influence by marrying into the indomitable Fearwyn family.

  When Spithilda’s little magical hissy fit had rendered him hairier than your average beau, Rad had been rejected by the Fearwyn’s as a suitable suitor for their daughter, and he had been shunne
d by his own family, forced to live a solitary life as a lone wolf. He had been compelled to turn into a conniving Casanova, preying on wealthy, single women who were oblivious to his curse, and bleed them for their money. When the funds dried up, he moved on to the next.

  It was a hateful existence, to be sure. To add insult to injury, Spithilda, had, up until now, continued to hold sway over Rad, having provided him with the monthly elixir he needed to get through his dangerous lunar cycles. I’d call that a check in the motive column.

  Means was another story. As with Violet, our investigations had remained unclear on whether or not Rad had access to pokeberry. Even if he hadn’t procured it from a typical source, I suppose he could have come across it as he wandered the Glessie Isle countryside. It wasn’t like the GIPPD micro chipped all the were-beasts who roamed the Isle. Werewolves might not have been in the upper echelons of supernatural society, but we certainly didn’t treat them like dogs.

  I thought of the Fearwyn’s and their blatant prejudice against The Children of the Moon.

  Okay. Not all of us treated them like dogs. Means was still a big, fat question mark then.

  “Dang it!” I slapped my hands in my lap ineffectually. “Where in the world are all my socks?” I hadn’t yet managed to match one pair. It looked like I would be venturing out tonight as Druida version 2.0. Bohemian was very ‘in’ right now, at least.

  Gloom meandered into the room toward the back door mat where she promptly flopped herself down. “That’s easy. Everybody knows there’s a black hole in your dryer that sucks one of each pair into it. Kind of like the black hole of life. Just sucks all the joy out.”

  I wasn’t sure, but I thought I heard a hissy snicker emanating from the onion bin. I shook my head. That doesn’t even make sense. Before I could investigate, the kettle whistled its readiness. I set the basket of impossible socks to the side and walked to the stove. I turned off the flame and poured the boiling water over the tea ball of Cronewort. A strong, herbal scent wafted up from the steaming cup, a pungent, almost sage-like scent that I knew was going to linger for hours.

  Artemisia vulgaris, if you didn’t catch the reference in its Latin name, was a herb of the Goddess Artemis. Some also knew it as Mugwort, and it had a wide variety of applications besides a digestive aid. The herb linked to the Queen of the Wild also had strong protective properties against such Gloomy Magic like The Evil Eye. Good to remember, I thought if I ever came up against a Romany witch. Its oil could also be applied in premonitory magic – for use with crystal balls, prophetic dreams, and scrying mirrors.

  “Try this, Carbon. It should help. I’d suggest you let it cool off a little before you try to drink it, but I know you like things hot.” I added six drops of deep sea Norwegian fish oil, just to make it a little more palatable for my furry guardian. Carbon moaned. “That might be true, human, but things have been a little too warm, even for me, lately. Thanks.”

  The 1956 Peggy Lee track, “Fever,” dropped on my mental turntable. I picked up the socks again, this time with a green and white striped in one hand, and a plum colored fuzzy one in the other.

  “Sun lights up the daytime,” I hummed. “Moon lights up the night.”

  The moon. Yeah. Back to Rad.

  Motive? Absolutely.

  Means? Questionable?

  Opportunity?

  Well, that was a whole other ball of wax. By his own admission, Rad stated that he had been at Spithilda’s on the eve of her death. He claimed that he had discovered her in her vardo, already dead. But, we only had his word for that. I think we could safely say that Mr. Silverback had had the opportunity to gain access to poison Spithilda.

  But, if Rad had a motive to dispatch Spithilda for ruining his life, certainly the imposing Portia Fearwyn could lay claim to the same motive. Even though I had great respect for Portia and her magical abilities, she was not a looker by any stretch of the imagination. The betrothal that had been arranged by Atropa and Heinrich may very well have been Portia’s only chance at lifelong companionship, if not true love. And, Spithilda had dissolved that opportunity for the solitary resident of the Gaunt Manor. I wondered if Rad and Portia had any contact at all these days. Unlikely, after all the painful history, but, still …

  I could sympathize with Portia on losing a prized person. Not a single day went by that I didn’t miss my parents and the comforting presence they had in my life. And, I longed to tell Chief Trew – David – how I truly felt about him, but could only pine for him from a distance, terrified as I was to lose another person I cared about so deeply. Even Millie I kept at arm’s length. I often caught myself thinking of my cherubic assistant like a little sister and quickly would admonish myself for the same thought.

  The only constants I had were there because there was no way, physically or magically, to separate them from my life – and those were my eight, immortal felines – The Infiniti. Or, ‘We, The Lemniscate,’ when Onyx was feeling pompous.

  It wasn’t such a reach, then, that Portia would be inclined to work her worst on Spithilda. And, as far as means? The mountain of pokeberry on the verge outside her manor quickly cinched that deal. But, there was no indication that Portia had had even a glimmer of an opportunity to administer the deadly poison.

  Ugh! All the mental detecting was giving me a big, fat headache.

  Speaking of big, fat headaches.

  “Now, Hattie, Chimera would put cayenne on your tongue if she caught you talking that way about somebody. Amber is not fat. A bit on the curvily bodacious side, maybe, but not fat.”

  Darn it, Onyx!

  Okay. So, maybe I wasn’t exactly ready to let David into my life as anything more than a friend just yet, but that didn’t mean I was immune to feeling a modicum of jealousy here and there when some other gal turned the Chief’s head.

  But, jealously aside, Amber was a logical addition to the suspect list, even as an employee of the GIPPD. Any investigator worth their salt would have been remiss to discount her completely. Look at the facts. She had conveniently shown up on Glessie Isle just before her sour, spinster aunt had kicked the bucket. And her radical shift from boohooing niece to sidling siren had been just a little too quick to ignore.

  Then there was the motive.

  Hers would have been one of the oldest motives for homicide since the dawn of man…greed. Her aunt Spithilda had been one of the richest people in all of the Coven Isles. As one of the last remaining members of the Roach family line, Amber could have stood to inherit millions…six zeros if Alban Dewdrop were to be believed.

  “But, aren’t you forgetting something?” Onyx countered, jumping into his familiar position as Devil’s advocate.

  I harrumphed, giving up on any hope of matching my socks. I dropped an exasperated chin into my hand. “What’s that, genius?”

  “Spithilda’s little ‘family death curse?’ No living relative of Spithilda’s can inherit her fortune? We all know that particular flourish of magic is unbreakable. No way around it; Amber can’t get her hands on that money even if she wanted to. So, pretty much bumps your would-be competition out of the running for Public Enemy Number One. There’s no motive, Hattie. You have to admit that Spithilda’s final magic has given Ms. Crystal a regular escape ‘claws.'”

  Onyx nonchalantly licked his extended paw. I dumped the whole basket of mismatched socks, and Fraidy, on his head.

  “Hey!” he spluttered.

  “My hiding spot!” Fraidy cried in terror.

  I stomped off to the laundry room and a basket of pants. Maybe I’d have better luck. At least pairs of pants were connected at the crotch.

  I was busy checking pockets before I tossed them into the wash when I slid my hand into the pocket of the pants I’d been wearing on our visit out to Portia’s. I pulled out a dollop of salt and pepper fuzz, the same fuzz I remembered pulling from the door jamb in Portia’s hall.

  My eyes widened. I dropped the pants and ran for the phone.

  “I gotta call the Chief!”
I blustered, nearly bowling Eclipse over backward as he sauntered into the room.

  “Whoa!” he cried. “What’s with the stat, Hat?”

  I slid in socked feet across the kitchen tile as I skidded to a stop at the kitchen door. I whipped around and looked at my cats. Midnight lounging in the sun, sleeping on the windowsill. Eclipse curling around the table leg. Gloom stretched out on the mat, her face buried in the pit of a sleeping Remulus’ underarm. Carbon lapping his Cronewart concoction, moaning softly. Onyx, picking staticky socks from his black fur. Fraidy taking each one his brother discarded and attempting to stick them to his own fur. No doubt, for camouflage. And two sets of yellow eyes peering from under cover of the onion bin. Shade and Jet were going to stink to high heaven.

  “I think I know where Rad Silverback is!”

  Chapter 12

  “Do you think Hattie knows we hid the socks in the onion bin?” Jet tried to pass the sotto voce comment to his brother, Shade. Problem with Jet was, nothing was under the radar with him; from his rocketing speeds to his drastically failed attempt at whispering. My jittery kitty was as loud as he was fast.

  “She does now,” I muttered. Jet face palmed a furry paw as I brought Grammy Chimera’s broom in for a landing outside Portia Fearwyn’s manor. When I placed the call to headquarters, I expected the Chief to ask me to pick him up on the way. Instead, he had just told me to meet him outside Portia’s. He would be taking his own broom.

  “Oh,” I had replied, trying not to sound too hurt. I guess I had gotten a little too used to this whole dynamic duo thing we had been building. It felt odd not having him on the back of my broom, strong arms wrapped around my waist.

  So, instead, I had opted to take two of the cats along. Although, considering the strong scent of yellow onion wafting from the two felines behind me, perhaps Jet and Shade hadn’t been the best choices.

  “It, it was his idea!” Jet stuttered defensively.

  “I don’t care whose idea it was,” I grumbled. “You’re both on laundry duty for the next week, or the only thing you’re gonna get to eat this week is Limburger cheese!”