A Spell of Murder

by Clea Simon

  Instead, as she was escorted down to the waiting cruiser, she seemed to be attempting a justification for her actions—from the murder of Suzanne to her attack on Becca.

  “You don’t understand!” The redhead could be heard through the open window. “I did it for Trent.”

  Her voice faded as the cruiser took her away. But as Becca turned back toward her dishes, a shadow fell across the floor. The rumpled detective stood in her open doorway, scowling.

  “Ms. Colwin?”

  Becca gasped, and the cats looked up.

  “Detective Abrams!” She spoke quickly, before she, too, could be cuffed and escorted out. “I’m so sorry I didn’t call you back!” Reacting to her agitation, Clara approached and circled, determined to do whatever was necessary to protect her person from this latest threat. “I got your messages, and I meant to get back to you, honest.”

  “Excuse me?” The detective asked, a puzzled expression creasing his lined face further. “What are you talking about?”

  “You, or your office, kept calling me and I never picked up. I knew I had more information, but I wanted…” Becca stopped, unsure of how to proceed. “I thought I could find out more. That is, before I came in.”

  The edge of the detective’s mouth twitched. “Before you came in?”

  “I never meant to evade justice.” Becca swallowed hard and stared in amazement as that twitch evolved from the ghost of a smile into a full-fledged grin. “I should have called back.”

  “You mean, you should have responded to my secretary.” He nodded, as if suddenly everything had become clear. “Yes, you should have. She was getting desperate to reach you. We’ve had your hat for over a week now, and this beautiful spring weather can’t last forever.”

  ***

  The resolution of the case was sad, but not surprising, and Becca kept her pets informed by reading aloud the daily updates in the news.

  At first, Kathy, on the advice of her attorney, claimed self-defense. She argued that Suzanne had attacked her when she’d gone to talk to her about her “ridiculous” suspicions and that she’d simply wanted to reason with the other woman, whom she accused of slandering the man she described as their coven leader. It was a reasonable defense, Becca mused as she read. Although no eyewitness had placed her in the Cambridgeport walkup, a plethora of evidence—including, Becca read, smudged fingerprints on the cake knife—had already made her a suspect, and the district attorney had been in the process of building the case when she had called from Becca’s apartment.

  “They could have said,” Becca muttered. Clara, for once, was grateful for her own inability to respond.

  Of course, the fact that the redhead had lunged for Becca under a similar circumstance made that defense a little less plausible, and soon after, she had her lawyer claiming temporary insanity—and citing the hot-bed atmosphere of the coven and its unhealthy influence on its youngest member as a contributing factor.

  That accusation more than anything else had served to bring the coven back together. Marcia forgave Trent his ill-timed pass, and the handsome warlock appeared to have recovered from his humiliating exposure. It helped that Larissa had given him a new gift—an intricate chain for his amulet.

  But it wasn’t Trent, ultimately, who had prompted Suzanne’s request that last night. At least, that’s what Becca concluded.

  “Suzanne wanted a casting out spell because of Kathy.” Becca had pieced it together in the intervening weeks. “She knew about Trent—about the money—but it was Kathy who was spreading rumors. Setting us all against each other. Suzanne might not have known who was stalking her. She certainly didn’t know how dangerous Kathy was, but she knew the coven ‘pet’ was a bad influence, and she wanted her gone.”

  “Makes sense to me.” Ande had joined her friend over tea—mint, this time—to debrief her as the case unfolded. The accountant had been giving testimony about what she’d found in the coven’s accounts and had come over after the trial had adjourned for the day to find Becca and all three cats waiting for the latest.

  “I didn’t know the half of it, but working for Reynolds, Suzanne must have figured out the connection,” Ande explained as the cats looked on. Laurel’s mouth opened slightly, taking in the tea’s aroma, while Harriet began to shift, eager for the talk to give way to eating. “She heard enough to know that Larissa was Reynolds’s ex and that she was desperate for money. Reynolds had been telling her in no uncertain terms that she had to get rid of her ‘boy toy’ before he’d give her any more. I guess Larissa was claiming that she’d been ripped off because she was embarrassed.”

  Becca mulled that over as she waited for her tea to cool. The woman who had yanked her lover’s chain didn’t seem the type to embarrass easily. “Maybe she just thought she could get more money out of her ex that way?”

  “Or maybe she really didn’t know how much Trent was taking, forging her checks and all?” Ande asked. “I should’ve known, the few times we went out. He definitely acted like he had something to prove.”

  Becca kept silent, but from the slight rise in her color, Clara knew she was thinking of a misadventure on the sofa—and how the intercession of her cats may have saved her from a bigger mistake. To hide the blush—or maybe because of Laurel’s intense concentration—she broke off a piece of almond cookie and held it down for her cats to lick.

  “So what are you wearing to Marcia and Luz’s wedding?” Ande was polite enough not to comment. Not even when Harriet body-checked Laurel out of the way.

  “I don’t know.” Becca was grateful for the change in subject. “I’ve got to go shopping. I’ll tell you, though, it would be nice to have money again.”

  “Reynolds owes you, big time.” Ande nodded. “I mean, I’m sure you’re great for the job—but you also helped keep Larissa out of prison.”

  Becca’s color deepened as she broke another cookie for the cats. “I don’t think it would’ve come to that. Nobody really thought she’d done it.”

  Her guest cracked a grin. “I don’t know. You thought so.”

  Becca nodded, growing thoughtful again. “I even wondered if you were involved.”

  “Well, yeah.” Ande’s smile widened. “I was so caught up in the wedding planning, I kind of missed that maybe it wasn’t the best time to be all secretive. So who are you bringing?” Ande’s smile widened. “The old guy or the new?”

  Becca’s cheeks were flaming now. “He’s not my new guy.”

  “You’re bringing the boss’s son! Excellent.” Ande pushed back from the table, startling the cats. “Anyway, it hasn’t all been nuptial—I really do have a load of work waiting for me. And you have to get ready for your new job.”

  “Maybe.” Becca looked over at Clara, almost as if she could read the calico’s green eyes. “We’ll see.”

  ***

  Despite Reynolds’s repeated entreaties, Becca kept stalling.

  She needed some time, she said. She had her own research project to finish up. Even after repeated visits back to the city records hall and hours poring over documents, she still couldn’t understand exactly what she’d found. At night, she studied her copies and checked her notes, reading everything she could find about Rebecca Horne and her cat. Was it possible that a feline could have had legal standing in the early days of the Commonwealth?

  What, she kept asking, was the relationship between her ancestor and her cat?

  Neither Clara, Harriet, nor Laurel chose to enlighten her. On that, the three sisters were agreed. Their brief moment of solidarity had passed, otherwise, and by the time the high summer had come around, Harriet was once more ignoring her youngest sister, while Laurel had taken to teasing her.

  “I’m the head of this family,” Harriet announced as she shoved her siblings. “Without me, we would have no more Becca to serve us.”

  “You wish, chubby,” Laurel snarled, just a bit.
Clara, who knew her middle sister was still self-conscious about being seen cross-eyed, kept quiet. She didn’t even interrupt when Laurel suggested a dress for the upcoming wedding. The slinky number might have been a daring choice for the young researcher, but Clara had to admit, Becca looked good in it.

  ***

  As it was, Becca was running late the day of the ceremony, a midsummer hand-fasting down by the river. She’d spent the morning at the records hall, again, trying to track down another possible branch of her family when one of the clerks had interrupted her.

  “Excuse me, are you Becca Colwin?”

  She’d looked up to see a round face with round glasses that should have looked jolly but was instead tense with worry.

  “I am.” She glanced at the papers before her. “Is there a problem?”

  “Oh, not with your research. Not at all.” The woman’s voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s only—I hear you’re the witch who solved that murder last month?”

  “Well, I’m not sure.” Becca couldn’t hide her smile, though it had more to do with being recognized for her magic than for her role in exposing Suzanne’s killer.

  “I have a friend who could use some help.” The other woman didn’t wait for Becca to explain. “She’s in trouble, you see. And, well, she needs someone who can draw on other powers…”

  ***

  “I don’t know if anything will come of it.” She told Clara about it as soon as she got home. “I mean, I really haven’t done anything since the pillow.”

  She shimmied into the dress as she spoke and looked at herself in the mirror.

  “But even if the police were already building a case against poor Kathy, I did help.” She reached for a necklace and paused, looking at the beaded choker she’d chosen as if it reminded her of something else. “Besides, it would be nice to earn a living doing something I really care about.” She turned her head this way and that, letting the beads sparkle in the light. “Helping people with my magic—and my research skills too.”

  Just then, Laurel came in, and suddenly, Becca was lifting her hair off her neck and reaching for a clip.

  “Nice,” the seal point purred. Clara glanced over, but held her tongue. Becca did look good with her hair up. More sophisticated.

  “What?” Harriet ambled in, in time to see Becca putting on her earrings. “No treats?”

  “I don’t think you’d want to eat those,” Clara ribbed her sister as Becca rose and addressed the three of them.

  “So, yeah, kitties, I think I’m going to turn down Reynolds’s offer after all, not that it wasn’t nice of him, and set out on my own. Becca Colwin, Witch Detective. Do you like the sound of that?”

  “Oh no!” Clara protested, while Laurel’s ears went out sideways in consternation.

  “Or, Colwin and Cats? Maybe that.” She turned one last time before the mirror and then smiled down at her flabbergasted pets.

  “Now don’t you think for a minute I don’t know what’s on your minds,” she said as she reached for a pretty lace shawl. “Of course I’m giving you dinner before I go out. And, yes, Harriet, treats too.”

  Acknowledgements

  So many friends and readers helped bring this new series to life. Karen Schlosberg, Brett Milano, and Lisa Susser were early readers, and Sophie Garelick, Frank Garelick, and Lisa Jones have always been incredibly supportive. My agent Colleen Mohyde got the book to my brand new editor Jason Pinter, making magic for me along the way. And Jon S. Garelick not only read multiple versions but put up with some very late dinners, too. Purrs out to you, my dears. Purrs out.

  About the Author

  A former journalist and music critic, Clea Simon wrote three nonfiction books, including the Boston Globe bestseller The Feline Mystique (St. Martin’s Press), before turning to a life of crime (fiction). Her more than two dozen mysterious usually involve cats or rock and roll, or some combination thereof. A native of New York, she moved to Massachussetts to attend Harvard and now lives nearby in Somerville.

  Visit her at www.CleaSimon.com or at @CleaSimon.