Then I stepped onto the last lot and Betsy caught my eye. Don’t ask me why she looked like a Betsy to me, but she did. It was love at first sight. Best of all, the price on the windshield had me doing a double take. In a good way.
When the salesman saw our interest in the little purple convertible doodlebug, he came rushing over, all smiles.
Ruby looked him dead in the eyes. “What’s wrong with it?”
His smile faltered for a microsecond, then came back with extra wattage. “Not a thing, really. She’s a 2013 model, and the convertible top works great.” He motioned up to the now sunny sky. “But with weather like this, who would want to close her up? Am I right? Of course, I am. Just imagine taking this baby for a long drive out in the country with the wind in your hair. Sounds like heaven, don’t it? And don’t even worry about the price of gas. This girl gets about 40 miles to the gallon on the highway.”
Before I could ask where to sign, Ruby stepped in front of me. “I’ll ask again. What’s wrong with it? That price isn’t the price of a car without problems. Not when it looks that nice.”
He swallowed, causing his Adam’s apple to do a bit of a dance in his throat. She was right. He was holding something back.
I ran my hand over Betsy’s hood. Hopefully, it would be something small that I could get fixed. I started looking the car over, not saying a word. I’d never hear the end of it if I talked first. Not when Ruby was in negotiation mode.
I’d made it to the back of the car when I caught the first whiff of the odor. The salesman, who had been watching me like a hawk, must have seen my nose wrinkle. It was a pretty potent smell.
“Okay,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “You got me. The guy that traded this in hit a skunk and rather than take the time to get the car fumigated, he just switched up to a new model.”
Ruby frowned at him. “And you guys didn’t think to have that done before trying to sell it?”
The Adam’s apple was bobbing again. I was starting to wish that we’d brought a little of Ruby’s magical truth spell with us. The witches’ council frowned on its use without permission, but times like these, it might have been worth the risk. How likely was the council ever to find out?
“We had the car washed and detailed, but the smell...” he gave a little unconvincing laugh. “Well, it’s being persistent, that’s all. I’m sure it will wear off in time.” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “And truthfully, if this baby didn’t have that smell, you’d have to add another few thousand to that price tag. It could work in your favor. Buy the car, give it a really good cleaning, not the quick once-over the detail shop gives them, and she’ll be right as rain. And you’ll have saved a wad of cash.”
Ruby didn’t look so sure, but I was pretty much sold.
“Has it been checked out by a mechanic?”
He nodded. “Sure has. Got a clean bill of health, too.” Another glance over his shoulder. “I’m really not supposed to do this, but if you buy this car today, I’ll even throw in a two-year warranty against anything major that could possibly go wrong with her. You won’t find a better deal anywhere else; I promise you.”
Well, I certainly wouldn’t find a better deal in Wind’s Crossing. That much was sure. I was biting my tongue to keep from jumping on it, but I wanted Ruby’s okay first.
She walked slowly around the car, fingering every little dent and scratch, there were a grand total of three—all of them minor. When she got to the trunk, she motioned for me to pop it and I did. The smell got a lot stronger.
I was kind of glad I was at the front of the car.
“Goddess!” Ruby said, backing away. “Did something die in there?”
If so, then whoever owned the car must not have found it right away. This was more than a simple skunk incident.
She slammed the trunk lid back down and made her way back to me. “I don’t think so, Amie. That is one bad smell.”
I agreed about the smell, but I really thought with a good cleaning, I could help that. And the car itself had to be a good one or no way would he have offered a two-year warranty.
After a pointed stare, the salesman took the hint and walked a few steps away to give us room to talk privately.
“What do you really think, Ruby?” I mean, it could have been an act for the salesman’s benefit. Ruby was an ace negotiator.
“Truthfully, I think you should keep looking.” She glanced over at the guy leaning on the hood of another vehicle. He looked particularly shady. And anxious. Like this sell meant more to him than he was letting on. “I don’t trust him. Why would they lose thousands on the sale of a car if all it needed was a good cleaning?”
I’d admit that I thought there was more to the story too, but the truth was, after three car lots this was the only vehicle that even came close to being what I wanted as well as what I could afford. Maybe the smell was a blessing in disguise. Just to let me get into the car for a price I could afford.
Ruby blew out a breath. “You’re buying it, aren’t you?”
I nodded.
“Okay then, let’s do this. But let me do the talking. You know I’m better at this than you are.”
I wasn’t going to argue. She was right.
She ended up getting the manager to come down another five hundred dollars. It might not be enough to cover the sales tax, but it would help with the title and license fees. That was a nice little added bonus. Plus the warranty.
By noon, I was the proud owner of Betsy. With keys and everything. I handed Ruby the extra set. After all, I’d promised.
She didn’t seem too keen on taking them, but she did. I didn’t think she would want to borrow Betsy until I got that smell taken care of. Personally, I didn’t see the problem. As long as the weather held, I could drive with the top down. That should take care of most of the odor right there.
Who would have thought I’d luck into such a good deal on my very first time of car shopping?
Chapter 5
IT WOULD BE A FEW DAYS before I got the paperwork to file for registration at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, so once the last signature was done and we got the keys, we still had a few hours to kill before the spell lesson deadline.
“Wanna go into the city and do a little shopping?”
Ruby rubbed her nose as we walked over to my new car. “Not really. I kind of just want to go home, actually. I called Mom while you were tied up, and she’s still at the shop. I think I’ll just walk over there and meet her.” Then she lifted her eyes to mine. “But don’t think I’ve forgotten your promise. We’ll do the meditation session after supper. And wherever you go, you’d better not be late for Mom. You know how she is about karma spells.”
Boy, did I ever. But I’d really hoped she’d learned her lesson after the last fiasco. I should have realized that my family’s stubbornness was of a stronger stock than that.
“I’ll be there. Promise.”
She nodded, waved, and walked off quickly.
I was starting to get offended. It wasn’t like Ruby to turn down a trip into the city for shopping.
There wasn’t too much time to ponder, though, because that’s when my cell phone went off. Mabel.
“Hey, girl,” I said. “You at the library? I’ve got something to show you.”
“Not now, Amie. I’m in trouble. Can you come to the library? Like right now?”
And just like that, my day dimmed a bit.
“On my way.”
I hopped into the car and started her up. The smell was a bit stronger when you were actually sitting in it, but there would be time to worry about that later. Right this minute, Mabel was taking up my worrying capacity.
What had Ralph done now?
Mere seconds later—small town—I pulled up outside the library and parked. A glance at the library doors showed the closed sign was still hanging on them. No sign of lights inside, either.
That was odd.
I climbed out of Betsy and started toward the building. That’s whe
n I heard the voices. They were coming from the public parking lot behind the building.
As soon as I rounded the corner, I saw the problem. No questions required for that. What with Ralph’s body lying motionless on the ground in a large pool of blood, it was more than obvious.
Mabel and Tommy were both there, standing about ten feet away from the body and looking very guilty. What had they done?
She looked up and saw me, and I could tell she’d been crying. “Amie, what do we do?”
I took a deep breath and walked over to them. From there, I had a closer look at the body. No question he was dead. No need to call for the paramedics, but the sheriff might not be a bad call to make. In fact, I was kind of wondering why they’d called me and not him.
“What happened?”
Tommy started to speak, but Mabel laid her hand on his arm and shook her head.
“I killed him,” she said. When Tommy started to speak again, she rushed on. “I think it might be considered self-defense, but I’m not sure. He came into the library last night right before closing time, more than a little drunk. After I closed up, he wanted to... you know, right there at the circulation desk. When I said no, he started in on me.” She shivered. “Always before I’ve just taken his beatings, but last night something just snapped. There was a piece of wood behind the counter from the last repair job, and I grabbed it and hit him with all my might.”
I frowned, still looking at the body lying right out in the open beside his car. If she’d killed him in the library, which I wasn’t at all sure I believed, how did his body get out here?
“When he went down, I ran,” she said. “And I didn’t go home last night, either. I really didn’t know I’d killed him. I swear it.”
“That’s because you didn’t kill him,” Tommy said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I’m not going to let you take the blame for something I did.” He looked over at me. His face was so set that it could have been carved in stone. “I was here last night, waiting by the back doors.”
He glanced over at Mabel. “I’d heard that Ralph had been drinking heavily that afternoon, and I was hoping to convince her not to go home to him. She came out so fast, she didn’t even see me. Or lock the back door, which is totally unlike her. I didn’t know what to do. After she left, I started to go into the library to see if I could tell what happened, but Ralph came out. To say he was angry doesn’t even begin to cut it. He saw me and he must have put two and two together, because he took a swing at me.”
Then he went quiet. Both of them were looking at me. As if I could fix this.
Even a Light Witch can’t fix dead.
“Let me take a stab at this. You two fought and when he went down, you left too. Didn’t know he was dead?” I was leading him with my question. I knew that wasn’t a good interrogation technique, but these two were my friends. Good friends.
“Exactly. I went home and found Mabel at my door crying. We... we went to a motel out of town. Nothing happened, but I didn’t want Ralph waking up and then coming to find her and cause trouble.” He locked gazes with me. “As mad as he was when he saw me, I think he would have killed her.”
“Okay, I think I’ve got the picture. We need to call the sheriff.” Personally, at this point, I wasn’t at all sure that either one of them had killed Ralph. Neither of them had mentioned a gun or a knife, and there was an awful lot of blood on the ground under and around the body for just a simple fight.
Mabel just stared at me. “That’s it? That’s your advice? Call the sheriff?”
What had she been expecting my advice to be? Don’t worry I’ll help hide the body? I had too many things I was hiding from the world right now to add more.
“Sheriff Taylor is a good man. We can’t keep this from him. I take it you found him like this when you came to open the library?”
They both nodded. Then they started arguing again between the two of them over who had killed him and what to tell the sheriff.
Looked like it was up to me to make that call.
THE SHERIFF’S CAR PULLED to the curb a scant two minutes after my call. Opie’s personal car closely followed it. No squad car for desk jockeys. Even temporary ones.
I nodded to the sheriff. “I thought he was still on strict desk duty.”
Sheriff Taylor grunted. “Yeah, when you’re involved, try telling him that.”
“The two of you can see me standing here, right?”
I smiled at him. “I just don’t want you to get in trouble with the boss man.” Fat chance since that happened to be his dad. Still, I didn’t want him to get in trouble with any other powers that be either. With all that being said, I was glad he was there. He was friends with Mabel and Tommy too. Maybe he could talk some sense into them.
It dawned on me that the sheriff was just staring at me. When he saw he had my attention, he said, “A little more information than ‘hightail it to the library’ might be nice.”
What could I say? I thought about it for a minute and then just gave up. “Follow me. It’s pretty self-explanatory.”
We turned the corner to the tiny employee parking lot and Tommy and Mabel jerked apart. She’d been leaning on him pretty heavily. They needed to get a grip on that side of things until this got squared away. They wouldn’t want the whole town thinking maybe this wasn’t Ralph’s fault after all. Funny how men were expected to fool around a little on the side, but the wives were supposed to hold true to their vows. It wasn’t fair, but that seemed to be how small towns like ours worked all the same.
The sheriff nodded to the two of them, then walked over and took a closer look at the body. When Mabel started to say something, he just held up a hand to stop her. After going all the way around the body, he looked over at me.
“You take any pictures yet?”
I shook my head. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. “All I’ve got with me is my cell phone. Would that work?”
“Better than nothing.” He glanced around. “Get everything you can, but stay back as far as you can too.”
While I started snapping photos with my cell, he headed over to Mabel. “Looks like he’s been dead for a while. Want to explain why I’m just now getting a call?”
I’d been halfway afraid they would change their story from the time they had talked to me, but luckily, they didn’t. The sheriff heard them both out in silence. He was good at taking things in without having to interrupt their flow. A person could get a lot of information that way.
Once they both wound down, each one of them still claiming guilt for Ralph’s death, he finally spoke.
“Tommy, you say he walked out of the library on his own, right?”
“That’s right, so Mabel’s in the clear, isn’t she? She didn’t kill him, I did.”
“But...” Mabel started to protest, but the sheriff held up his hand again.
“I’ll get to you in a minute. Right now, I’m talking to Tommy.”
She didn’t look happy, but she kept her mouth shut.
“So, you said he walked out, saw you and got angry. Then he took a swing at you and the two of you fought. Is that accurate?”
“Yes, sir. I didn’t mean to kill him. I really thought I just knocked him out. Once he was down, I left.” He stole a glance over at Mabel. “I was more worried about her at the time.”
Sheriff Taylor nodded. “I can understand that.” He paused, looking back to the body. “This next question is extremely important, and I want you to be sure before you answer it. Did either of you draw a weapon? A knife or a gun?”
Tommy actually started, his eyes widening. “Absolutely not!”
“All right then. I’ll need the two of you to go to the station with Opie and give formal statements to him. I’ll get a scene crew out here and start collecting evidence, if any survived the night.”
“But it’s me you’ll be arresting, right?” Tommy wanted that settled right away.
“Right now, I’m not arresting anybody. But I want your
statements, and I don’t want either of you taking any trips out of town. Got it?” They nodded. “Good. Now call Clarence and tell him the library will be closed today. It can reopen tomorrow, but we don’t need to give people an excuse to be hanging around here.”
“I already called him. He wasn’t happy, but he understood.”
Opie herded them up the alley, then turned back to me. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I only got a few minutes lead on you guys.” I gave him a sad smile. “Take good care of them, okay?”
“Kid gloves, I promise.” Not that I would expect anything else from him. My fellow was a good guy all the way around.
Once they were gone, I looked at the sheriff. “There’s a whole lot more blood than I’d expect from a person who was beaten to death.”
“Yup, my thoughts too.” He rubbed his chin with his thumb. “I’m really wanting a look at the front of him. But I don’t want to move him until the team processes the scene. Don’t want to mess this one up. I like those two, and as much as I probably shouldn’t say this, Ralph had been asking for something like this to happen to him for quite some time. People around here like Mabel and they knew how things were between them. Even if she never said a word against the man. They knew.”
It made me feel a lot better knowing that the sheriff wasn’t going to rush on with arresting Tommy. I’d figured Mabel would be in the clear. But Tommy’s confession had a little more meat to it. As far as we knew no one had seen Ralph alive after Tommy left him lying there.
That didn’t look good for him.
“I do have one more question for you,” he said, not looking me in the eyes. “Would you mind very much telling me what the hell that smell is?”
Chapter 6
TIME PASSES QUICKLY at a crime scene.
For now, I was content with letting the actual law enforcement authorities handle the murder investigation. Sheriff Taylor and I seemed to be on the same page, and neither of my friends had been arrested. So far, so good.
Un-Familiar Magic (Accidental Familiar Book 3) Page 3