Wisteria Witches Mysteries Box Set 3

by Angela Pepper

  Bentley kept driving. And when we reached the street, he didn’t turn back to park in front of the coffee shop.

  “Change your mind?” I asked.

  “Just wanted to get a positive ID on the vehicle. If we like Maisy Nix as the Grim Reaper, we should get some more information before we talk to her. Right now she has all of the information and we have none.”

  “Assuming she has any information at all. She might have been visiting someone in the area. Maybe a boyfriend.”

  “Maisy Nix is forty-five,” Bentley said. “Ishmael was only twenty-six. He was too young for her, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Some mature women like dating younger men. My mother, for example.”

  He frowned at the street ahead. “It’s odd that you’re always mentioning either your mother or your aunt to me. It’s like you’re trying to set me up. Exactly how old do you think I am?”

  I replied without hesitation. “Fifty.”

  He took his eyes off the road long enough to shoot me a dirty look.

  “I didn’t mean it,” I said. “You don’t look fifty. Except maybe when you’re scowling.”

  “I turned forty-two last week.”

  “Happy birthday. What did you do to celebrate?”

  “After twenty-one, there aren’t any birthdays worth celebrating. What’s so great about getting older?”

  “It beats the alternative,” I said. “Ishmael Greyson won’t be getting any more birthdays.”

  Bentley made a grumpy noise. “This is why I’d rather not discuss personal matters with my partner. I was simply sharing my opinion with you, and now you’ve brought up the murder victim and painted me as the bad guy just because I didn’t order a bouncy castle and throw a block party for my birthday. You made me sound ungrateful to be alive.”

  “Are you?”

  He turned up the volume on the car stereo.

  As we drove, I wondered if Bentley had always been so gloomy about birthdays or if dating the undead, humorless woman who was my mother had changed him in some way.

  There was another incoming call. He answered it. The young woman—whose name definitely was Persephone—confirmed that Greyson’s great-uncle, Arden Greyson, was indeed the owner of the garage apartment and main house. The police hadn’t been in touch with Arden yet, but he had been spotted out on the ocean on his little yellow boat. Probably with his dog and his pointy trident, I thought. According to Persephone, Arden must have left to go fishing at dawn, before the police had showed up at the house.

  “I’ll stop by the marina next,” Bentley said.

  “No need. We’ve got someone there waiting to talk to him when he comes ashore.”

  “Great. Keep me posted. I’m nearly at the victim’s sister’s place now.”

  “Oh, dear,” Persephone said.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing. Uh, nothing case-related. I just feel bad for you that you’re the one who has to give people bad news. It must be so hard.”

  Coolly, Bentley said, “It’s all part of the job.”

  “I know, I know,” she said. “But if you need someone to talk to, I’m around.”

  The detective cleared his throat. “Persephone, I have someone in the car with me.”

  She blurted a curse word, followed by an apology.

  “It’s fine,” he said. “I’ll speak with you later.”

  After the call ended, I could only hold back for so long.

  “You’re having a torrid affair with Persephone!” I squealed.

  “I am not.”

  “She thinks you are.”

  “She’s just a girl. Girls get crushes. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “You’d better watch out for all those pretty young things who work under you. One of them’s going to get you, and put a permanent smile on that grouchy mug of yours.”

  He shot me a deadly look.

  “You won’t know what to do with yourself if you turn happy,” I said.

  “I’m not going to turn...” He sighed. “Thanks for the warning, partner.”

  “Any time.”

  A moment later, we were parking in front of Greyson’s sister’s workplace, a tattoo studio located on the main floor of an old house.

  “Carrot Greyson is a tattoo artist?” I asked.

  “Yes. Why? Do you know anything about that?”

  “You said the person who made the two blood streaks might have an artistic flair. Is she a suspect?”

  “It’s a homicide investigation, Zara. Everyone’s a suspect.”

  “Even me?”

  “That would be quite the twist, wouldn’t it?”

  I held up one hand. “I didn’t do it. I swear.”

  “How can you be so sure? You’ve admitted that you allow spirits to possess your body.”

  He actually had a point. I said nothing as I mulled it over. A spirit had made me sleepwalk at least once before. I’d even sleeptoasted. Had I sleepmurdered?

  “It wasn’t you,” Bentley said. “I don’t know what happened in that apartment, but I know in my heart that it wasn’t you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You’re a good person. Good people aren’t perfect, but they don’t murder, not even when they’re being influenced by someone else.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Partner.”

  We got out of the car and prepared to interview the victim’s sister.

  Chapter 10

  The studio was named Time Traveler Tattoos. I’d expected it to have a pun name, like many of the small businesses in Wisteria, which included such gems as Open Toad Shoes, Salt and Battery Seafood, Doggy Style Pet Groomers, Stalk Market Flowers, Hairforce One, and the Shady Lanes Bowling Alley. I was surprised by Time Traveler Tattoos’ intriguing name as well as its eye-catching logo, which featured a woman in a flapper dress and steampunk goggles riding a strange flying contraption.

  Bentley and I walked inside, and were cheerfully greeted by the owner and tattoo artist, Carrot Greyson. The young woman, who had dyed orange hair the color of freshly pressed carrot juice, stared at me with big, bugged-out blue eyes.

  Bentley introduced us by name.

  “Zara Riddle?” Carrot asked. “You must be Zinnia’s niece.”

  “I am.” I was glad Bentley had warned me that Zinnia had worked with Carrot at City Hall.

  The orange haired woman cooed, “You look exactly like her!”

  And she looked exactly like her brother, except female and still alive.

  Before I could say anything awkward, Bentley took her by the elbow and said in a low and serious tone, “We need to sit and speak privately, Ms. Greyson. I’m afraid there’s some bad news.”

  “B-b-bad news?” Her large eyes glistened.

  Bentley signaled for me to stay where I was, in the lobby, and whisked Carrot through the doorway into some back area. The old house was deadly quiet. If other people worked at Carrot’s tattoo studio, they weren’t in yet that afternoon.

  I stayed in the front waiting area, in what must have originally been the home’s mudroom. Ishmael’s ghost hadn’t made an appearance, but I kept an eye out for him as I surveyed the place.

  The interior of Time Traveler Tattoos had a bold, red-and-black scheme, starting with the checkerboard floors, then extending up the walls in alternating stripes of red and black. There was a shiny red sofa next to the front door. I took a seat on the end of the sofa. The red fake leather squeaked under me.

  I checked out the reading material on offer. It was all tattoo magazines. I picked one up, but couldn’t focus on the page long enough to read, so I held it loosely on my lap while I gawked around. The reception area’s front counter was sleek and black. The counter was lined with a tidy row of glass apothecary jars. The jars held candies, but only red ones. There were red jelly beans, red licorice whips, red jawbreakers, red saltwater taffy, and red gumballs. My mouth watered for the candy, but I stayed where I sat. I wasn’t a customer. I was an unwanted guest bearing very bad n
ews.

  I crossed my legs, smoothed down my gray wool skirt, and tried to look professional in case the victim’s sister happened to glance my way.

  Carrot Greyson had certainly created a welcoming tattoo studio. It was just edgy enough to increase the thrill of being tattooed, yet it was also homey and relaxed. She had a trio of ferns growing in a macramé plant hanger, and a small box of children’s toys tucked under a side table. The boldly striped walls were decorated with black-framed prints from various eras. There were illustrations of airplanes from the early days of aviation, portraits of white-wig-wearing aristocrats, and a number of patent applications for perpetual motion machines and time traveling contraptions. My gaze swept from one delightful illustration to the next until I landed on a drawing of a jaguar. The print was the twin of the one I’d seen that morning at Ishmael’s place, next to the spatter of his blood.

  Ishmael Greyson.

  I’d never heard his name before that Saturday. It had sounded so strange at first, but now it was too familiar. His name wouldn’t stop echoing in my mind. I looked around Time Traveler Tattoos for the ghost with the bulging eyes and the skinny, glowing neck. I still couldn’t see or sense him.

  “Ishmael,” I whispered. “Ishmael Greyson, are you here?”

  There was no response.

  I decided to cast a threat detection spell I’d recently learned from my mentor, Aunt Zinnia. The spell revealed the invisible or hidden, within certain parameters that Zinnia hadn’t defined clearly. I suspected she’d been keeping me in the dark on some spells to prevent me from becoming overconfident. But I’d seen her cast the spell, and I’d kept pestering her about it until she taught it to me recently.

  To cast the spell, I waved my hand as though I was sprinkling powder in a circle around myself. The spell also came in powdered form, with the magic already built in, but we’d used up my aunt’s supply during lessons and she hadn’t yet made another batch. Zinnia told me the spell would work at least one time on a newly made ghost—one time only, then the spirit became inoculated against the spell. Until now, I hadn’t needed any spells to see ghosts, but there was something different about Ishmael. Or something different about me.

  The old house was quiet, yet an even deeper hush fell around me as the threat detection spell settled. I held very still and waited. No ghost.

  Darn.

  The spell hadn’t reveal anything new, and yet... the gleaming checkerboard floor did appear more dusty than it had seemed a moment before.

  I cast the spell once more for good measure, this time twitching my non-dominant fingers at the upper corners of the small waiting room.

  Still no ghost.

  I looked over at the jars of red candies. Those sugary candies are the only threat in this waiting area, I thought with a chuckle. My mouth watered. I forced my eyes down to the magazine. Zara is a good witch. Zara doesn’t help herself to delicious red candies that are for customers only.

  Cut to: twenty minutes later.

  Wouldn’t you know it, yours truly literally had her hand in the candy jar when Bentley returned to the waiting room.

  Busted.

  “I need your help,” he said, then shook his head. “I can’t leave you alone for a minute, can I?”

  I held out a handful of red jelly beans. “I was planning to share. Here. Take some.”

  “They look moist from your hand.”

  “So? Don’t tell me you’re a germaphobe.”

  “Just because I’m selective about what I put in my mouth, that doesn’t make me a germaphobe.” He hand went to something at his neck, a lump under his shirt collar.

  I stuffed the jelly beans in my mouth. He was right about my hand being moist. The candy coating left a red sheen on my palm that I had to lick clean, much to Bentley’s horror.

  Chapter 11

  The sticky candy clung to my teeth as I asked Bentley, “How’d it go?”

  “She took the news as well as could be expected.” He rubbed his chin. “I’d like to try the rest of the interview with you present. Since you’re here already, I might as well put you to use.”

  “You make me feel so special.”

  He nodded for me to follow him. “She formed a bond with your aunt when they worked together. Due to your similar appearances, I believe Miss Greyson may be more comfortable with you present. I’ve explained to her that you’re acting as a special behavioral consultant on the case.”

  “And she bought it? Wow. You’re good.”

  With no trace of humor whatsoever, he said, “I am good.”

  I followed him through the tattoo studio, past reclining black leather chairs that would look right at home in an edgy dentist practice, and then into a small office.

  Carrot Greyson was wiping her eyes with a crumpled tissue. Bentley and I sat on two guest chairs that were a bit too close together. We bumped arms until we each leaned to the outside.

  “Ms. Greyson, I’m so sorry to be meeting you under these circumstances,” I said, offering her my hand for the second time because I didn’t know her well enough to offer a hug. She shook it limply.

  “You look so much like Zinnia,” she said. “I feel like I know you already.”

  “If you know my aunt well, you may know more about me than most people do.” For example, she might know that the Riddles were witches.

  She frowned. “I don’t know her that well. We worked together for over a year, but she’s very private about her personal life.”

  “Ah,” I replied. Zinnia was private about her personal life. Carrot Greyson didn’t know my aunt was a witch.

  She went on. “I didn’t even know Zinnia was dating someone in our office until...” She trailed off, her weepy eyes unfocused. She seemed to stop breathing for a full moment before taking in a gasp of air and then gushing, “It’s all been so terrible lately. Everything. I thought I could get away from all of that death and start fresh by opening this place, but we can’t ever escape our fates, can we?”

  I glanced over at Bentley for permission to dive in with my questions. He gave me an almost imperceptible nod.

  “What do you mean by our fates?” I asked gently. “Do you think that whatever happened to your brother has something to do with you?”

  “I don’t know.” She scrunched her face. “Do you ever feel like you’re cursed?”

  “Yes,” I answered without hesitation. I’d been told I was Spirit Charmed, but it often felt more like Spirit Cursed.

  Bentley interjected. “It’s normal to feel that way after a string of bad luck. I’m sure you’re not cursed, Ms. Greyson.” He looked directly at me and explained, “Earlier this year, two of the people Carrot worked with at the Permits Department died by violent means. The cases have both been closed, and there’s no reason to believe those incidents are connected to what we’re talking about today.”

  I nodded. The cases had almost certainly been connected to my aunt, and I was dying to know how, but now wasn’t the time.

  “Let’s say you are cursed,” I said to the young woman with the skinny face and bright orange hair. Bentley groaned, but I went on. “Do you have any thoughts about who might have cursed you? Or why?”

  “I’m not crazy,” she said. “I know things like curses aren’t real.” She smacked herself lightly on the forehead. “Stupid Carrot.” She gave herself another smack before she dropped her pale hand away. “I shouldn’t even say stuff like that as a joke. People always tease me about my beliefs. My boyfriend hates it when I tell him about my dreams.”

  I leaned forward. “Your dreams?”

  “In my dreams, sometimes I’m myself, but other times I’m like a camera, or a silent passenger inside an animal.” She rubbed her collarbone, running her fingertips over the tattoo that marked her pale flesh there. It was the paw of an animal with sharp claws. “The Greyson family comes from a long line of psychics and monster hunters,” she said. Then she smacked her forehead again. “Stupid Carrot. I shouldn’t have said that. Now you both thin
k I’m crazy.”

  In unison, Bentley and I both said, “Not at all.”

  Bentley took over. “There are many things in this world people don’t speak of, let alone understand. Did you have any of these dreams last night?”

  “No. It was so hot upstairs.” She dabbed her eyes dry and explained, “I live on the top floor of this place, and there’s no air conditioning, as you might have noticed.”

  “It’s not so bad on this level,” Bentley said.

  “No, but heat rises,” she said. “The heat must have knocked me out, because my dreams were only blackness, except for when I was watching a movie.” She smiled briefly through her tears. “I dreamed I was watching a movie that hasn’t been released yet. Isn’t that funny? My mind must have made it up from the trailer.”

  Bentley and I exchanged a look. Did Carrot have a psychic connection with her brother? Rather than wonder to myself without any answers, I went ahead and asked, “Did you and Ishmael share a bond? I’ve heard that some siblings can sense things about each other in ways that can’t be explained by science.”

  “We aren’t twins,” she said. “He’s a year older than me.” A tear sprung from one eye. She caught it with the crumpled tissue. “He was a year older, anyway. Now I’ll catch up to him, since he won’t be getting any older.”

  “Oh, sweetie.” I got up from my chair, leaned down next to her and gave her a firm hug. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said into her orange hair. She hugged me back, and I held tight on until she let go.

  When I returned to my seat, she was looking at me with her head cocked. “You’re different from Zinnia,” she said. “You look like her, but you’re not her.”

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  Bentley cleared his throat and tapped a short pencil on a notepad he’d produced from a jacket pocket. “Ms. Greyson, I’m afraid we must press on. In cases such as these, time is of the essence.”

  “Of course,” she said. “What else do you need to know? I already told you that my brother didn’t have any enemies or people who’d want to hurt him. He’s never even had a girlfriend, as far as I know. He doesn’t have any close friends in town. He likes to work and save his money for traveling.” She wrinkled her nose. “He lives for safaris. The kind where they shoot big game.”