Jeez. Not even the ghosts wanted to have lunch with me.
Chapter 3
Scratching my head, I picked up my book and blinked at the empty space she’d left behind. I guess she didn’t need my help. And listen, she wasn’t the first ghost to turn up out of the blue needing nothing from me.
Weird things like this happened all the time. Sometimes a spirit simply needed to connect, and once they’d made the connection, they were satisfied.
I know I’ve said this before, but there really isn’t any rhyme or reason to the afterlife, so I wasn’t terribly troubled by her appearance. Likely, she’d heard through the spirit world grapevine that Madame Z’s was a safe place to land.
Glancing down at the book, I brushed it off and made sure the pages weren’t crinkled—because that was a sin in my eyes—and chuckled.
“I guess it’s just you and me and some Murder on the Orient Express, eh, Agatha?”
But then I remembered the paper with Win’s handwriting on it.
Donna Blitzhen. Who was Donna Blitzhen, and why was my International Man of Mystery doodling her name on our store’s stationary? And what did the numbers 24, 2000 and 13 mean?
Scooping up the piece of paper, I put it in the pocket of my sundress and decided to go grab that cup of coffee while I mulled over what Win’s note meant.
With a quick glance around, I finished tidying up the papers and gathered my phone to see if Win had texted me back. Sighing when I saw there were no new texts, I grabbed my purse and headed out the door, locking it behind me.
The day was sunny and bright, I smelled the salty water in the air, heard the seagulls cry overhead, and it made me smile. It wouldn’t be long before fall came, and with it, the rain. I figured I’d better enjoy this lovely weather while I could.
Not that I mind fall. Though Christmas is still my jam, maybe even more so now that I have a sister who has a factory that sells all things Christmas. In fact, she’d sent me a huge catalogue of the things they sold. Maybe I’d take a couple of hours today to start checking off the things I wanted for the holiday season.
It wasn’t as though I had anything else to do.
Feeling cheered by the notion of shopping for Christmas in August, I made my way along the sidewalk, waving to a couple of fellow store owners before I pushed open the glass door of Strange Brew, looking forward to a mocha latte and maybe even a cinnamon bun slathered in icing.
I loved the new look Forrest had given the place before he went on sabbatical. The muted cream walls with splotches of tan made it look well-worn and aged, much the way they would in an old café in Italy. The tables were all black wrought iron to match the chairs, each with a single-bud glass vase holding a red rose.
The delicious scent of coffee mingled with baked goods wafted to my nose as I approached the counter, where I ran into Sandwich and Chester standing in line, having a very lively conversation.
Sandwich slapped Chester on the back and laughed. “Yep. I saw her with him all right. Sure is a nice-lookin’ lady. Let’s just hope Ste—”
“Stevie!” Chester, who must have seen me from the corner of his eye, all but yelped, his cute face and almost bald head turning a light shade of red. “Sheesh, no wonder you solve so many crimes. You’re like a cat, sneakin’ up on us like that!”
I flashed a hand upward with a small grin, picking up on a really weird vibe. It almost felt as though I’d caught them doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing…which was certainly odd. They were just grabbing some coffee. No big deal.
“Hi, guys. What’s up?” Tucking my purse under my arm, I gave Chester a quick peck on the cheek, brushing some crumbs off his short-sleeve plaid shirt.
Sandwich drove his hands into the pockets of his pants and made a big deal of looking at the menu board on the wall behind the counter, his round face also ironically turning a shade of red.
“Aw, nothin’. We were just shootin’ the breeze. How ya been, Stevie?” he asked casually, but he didn’t look at me.
“Pretty good. How about you?”
“Good, good,” he sort of mumbled, looking down at his feet.
Gosh. This was odd. Sandwich was usually far more animated when we ran into each other.
I drove my hand through Chester’s arm and tucked him next to me, something I did often, only to feel him stiffen, making me pause.
But only for a moment before I asked, “So what are you up to on this lovely day, Chester Sherwood?”
He coughed and followed Sandwich’s lead by looking down at his practical brown sandals worn with white, knee-high socks.
“Not much, kiddo. Thought I’d grab a donut before I go home to take a nap. You know, old people stuff.”
I chuckled and patted his arm. “You’re not old, mister. You’re seasoned.”
Now he chuckled, too, and almost relaxed. “That’s mighty fine of you to say, young lady. Seasoned sounds so much better than old fart.”
I chuckled again, feeling a little more like we were in the normal lane…but then he patted my arm and went completely silent. In fact, they were both suspiciously silent.
I might not have noticed, except for the fact that it wasn’t just silence-silence, you know? The kind where you really have nothing in particular to say, but it’s nice to see a familiar face so you bask in the familiarity?
It was uncomfortable and, dare I say, tense.
And sometimes when it’s awkward, you know how that one person who can’t stand the awkwardness tries to fill up the silence with meaningless words?
That’s me.
I’m that person.
I tapped Sandwich on the back. “So, any new cases at the precinct these days, Sandwich? Anything interesting?”
He leaned an elbow on the counter, still intently studying the menu as though his life depended on it. “You know darn well I can’t talk about such sensitive matters with a civilian, Stevie Cartwright. You know darn well that’s true.”
I held up my hands like two white flags to his back because he still hadn’t turned around. “Okay. Jeez, Mildred. I was just asking. Why so touchy?”
He harrumphed and put his hands on his hips, all without turning around. “I am not either touchy. I’m just giving you the real deal. There’s nothing going on that you need to know about. And I know you, Miss Part-time Detective. Yep, I sure do. If you can sink your teeth into something, you’ll be all over me like an ant on a watermelon at a picnic. But I have nothing to tell you, okay?”
That meant he had something to tell me. Or maybe not me in particular, but he was keeping something under his hat.
How strange. Yet, I hadn’t heard anything about any crimes today on the news. Trust me when I tell you, I read the papers and scour our local Facebook page, and if anything fishy was going on, I’d know.
Then I realized this was more about my need to have a crime to solve than it was about Sandwich hiding something.
I think.
Anyway, the spark of excitement I momentarily felt about a possible new case took a nosedive, and I decided to let it go as Sandwich placed his order, grabbed his coffee and Danish and left with a quick and, might I add, quite distracted wave goodbye to me.
I watched him scurry out to his patrol car and looked to Chester to see if his expression held any answers for Sandwich’s sudden getaway, but he looked away as though he didn’t see me.
Squinting, I decided to shut my jibber-jabber down and peruse the menu, leaving Chester a convenient out.
He muttered something and excused himself to the bathroom before I had the chance to corner him again, so I placed my order and shrugged off the vibe that still felt peculiar.
When the door jingled another entry, I knew who it was without having to turn around simply from the sound of their chuckles. Some of the ladies of the garden club piled into the café, talking over each other the way they always did.
Unless Win was around. Then there was an almost Pavlovian response to the sound of his dulcet tones and
sexy accent.
I turned around while I waited for my order and called out, “Hi, ladies!”
Every last one of them (and there were four) stopped dead in their tracks, and clung to each other, their faces stricken as though they’d seen a ghost.
I waved again, cocking my head at their strange reaction to seeing me.
And then they were all manner of sound and motion. Millicent Harper was the first to break from the pack and approach me, her pin-curled gray hair perfectly set, her matching floral shirt and Bermuda shorts crisp and bright.
“Stevie!” she gasped brightly, her smile wide, her eyes wider. “What are you doing here?” she asked in a voice so high, I bet Whiskey heard her.
“She’s here to have coffee, Millie. What the heck do you think she’s doing here, shoppin’ for her unmentionables?” Glynnis Malone jeered at her friend, rushing to her side to grab her by the arm and give her a light shake.
Glynnis’s sharp brown eyes roved over my face. In fact, she examined me so closely, I felt a little sized up.
“Nice day today, isn’t it, Stevie?” she asked in her smoky voice, tucking her free hand into the pocket of her elastic-waist jeans.
“Yes indeedy,” I said with a nod and a confused smile. “It’s really nice. So what are you ladies up to on this lovely day?”
Agnes Ritter stepped around Millicent and Glynnis and smiled at me with the same weird, eyes-open-wide smile Millicent had on her face. “Just getting some coffee for our klatch. We have one twice a week. Mondays and Thursdays.”
“But today’s Friday,” I mentioned, just as a general conversation point. I mean, I wasn’t accusing anyone of anything. I was just making a passing remark.
However, the way Lorraine Hammond reacted? You’d think I’d accused her of murder.
She gave me a huffy snort and smoothed a hand over her silver bob, straightening her hairband before she planted her hands on her track-suited hips.
“Well, sometimes we have an extra meeting. Is there something wrong with that, young lady? It’s not as though we’re here getting pie-eyed like doddering old fools. It’s only coffee. We’re not so old we can’t leave the house more than twice a week, you know!”
Okay, did I wake up in the Upside Down? You know, that place on Stranger Things? What was all this talk of being old and drunk about? What in all of touchy was going on?
Immediately, I tried to right the egregious wrong I’d apparently made. “No, of course not, Miss Lorraine. I was only making conversation.”
“Lorraine!” Agnes chastised, giving her friend the look. “Stevie was only making a point. Chillax, would you?”
Chillax?
And then Agnes tapped my arm and giggled, her soft voice whispering from her wrinkled red lips. “I learned that from a book I’m reading. Such a fun word, don’t you think? Chillax.”
I nodded vigorously. “So fun.” I figured agreeing with whatever they said was prudent before they took my head off. “Anyway, you ladies have a wonderful day, and say hello to my guy when you see him later this afternoon, would you?”
“See him later this afternoon?” Millicent twittered, her voice going high as she nibbled the tip of her finger and her silver brows smooshed together. “But I thought he was investigating that thing with Don— uh, I mean, ha—”
“Hahahahahaha!” Glynnis quite suddenly burst out laughing, cutting Millicent right off before turning her back to me and saying, “Girls, it’s been fun running into Stevie, but don’t forget, we have a garden club meeting with Win this afternoon. So you’d better grab your coffee because we need to skedaddle, right?”
All of the ladies, momentarily frozen in place, became sound and motion once more as they nodded their heads vigorously.
“Yes!” they chirped in unison, practically running away from me to grab a table in a cluster of orthopedic shoes and the heavy scent of Charlie.
I, on the other hand, took my coffee and my cinnamon bun, still a bit aghast.
When I turned around to head out, they were all whispering and looking at me, and I almost stopped to ask them what all the chatter was about, but then I decided, Win truly loved garden club. I didn’t want to muck things up for him. Though, I did hear one of them ask if “it was too much.”
I don’t know what that meant, but this day was becoming too much for me, that’s for sure. Maybe I should cancel my day of beauty overhaul and just go home, crawl in bed and start over tomorrow.
Balancing my coffee and my warm cinnamon bun, I was about to push the door open when the roar of a car caught my attention.
A beautiful, shiny black, and obviously quite foreign sports car with tinted windows and red and black rims drove by, the engine rumbling like a contented lion.
I’d never seen anything like it. In fact, the only person I could think of with a fancy sports car that I couldn’t identify by sight was Ronald Sutton, a retired Silicon Valley computer guy who had a Ferrari, and I only knew that because Win told me what model it was.
But wait.
I squinted as it drove by, the sunlight catching the shiny hood of the car and its sleek body.
This car looked suspiciously like…
A convertible (with the top up).
An Aston Martin convertible…
Chapter 4
Want to know how I know that? I’ll tell you how. Believe you me, this exact car, this love of Win’s life, custom-made for him by some rich connection in his spy days, has been in storage since the day I met my International Man of Mystery, and it’s been driving me crazy just as long.
I’d looked up Aston Martins once online out of curiosity. It wasn’t so much the fact that Win had a fancy, expensive sports car, it was that he wouldn’t let me anywhere near it—or even tell me where it was.
He’d given me everything in death. His money, his house, his stocks and bonds, basically the life he lived before he’d died, but he wasn’t budging on the Aston Martin.
I know, I know. That sounds ridiculous, right? To be upset over a car? A hunk of metal and rubber tires. But keeping it from me felt like the last line of trust we needed to cross.
Not that I wouldn’t trust him if he never showed me the stinkin’ car. I obviously already do trust him—implicitly. But if feels like the last piece of his old life to which I haven’t been allowed access.
Does that make sense? I’m probably just being irrational because I’m having a needy day.
Anyway, I have a pretty good idea what an Aston Martin looks like, and while I don’t know if this one is anything like Win’s because I’ve never seen it (notgrudgingnotgrudgingnotgrudging), it sure looks like some of the pics that came up when I Googled them.
So who else in Eb Falls has an Aston Martin other than Win?
No sooner had that registered and I was about to take a closer look than I ran smack into a very tall body, which blocked my view.
“Oh! Excuse me. I’m so sorry!” I yelped in surprise as I almost toppled my coffee and my cinnamon bun nearly hit the ground.
“Miss Cartwright?”
I looked up and rolled my eyes, trying to step around my closest one-time frenemy. “Dana! Sorry, but I’m in a rush. I want to see who was driving that car. Did you see it? I’d swear it was an Aston Martin.”
He looked down at me, his eyes capturing mine, his lips thinning as he directed me back into the café with his hand at my elbow. “You mean the black car that just drove by?”
“Uh-huh. Did you see who was driving it?” I tried to crane my neck to see around him, but he sort of shuffled his stance.
Then he stepped forward an inch, rather than letting me pass, and said, “That wasn’t an Aston Martin, Stevie.”
I relaxed a little and gazed up at him. “How do you know?”
“I’m an officer of the law. We do have some knowledge about cars, and we live in a small town. I’d know if someone had an Aston Martin. Believe me.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Maybe it’s a tourist?”
“And maybe it’s not. Give the Eb Falls PD some credit here, would you? If an Aston Martin showed up, we’d all know it. Especially seeing as it’s so rare, and it’s also a very fast car. We’d be hyper-aware to someone speeding around in it, don’t you think?”
“Why would you immediately jump to the conclusion that the driver would speed?”
“You don’t buy an Aston Martin to go slow, Stevie.”
I made a face at him. “But the person who just drove by in an Aston Martin wasn’t speeding at all. Talk about guilty until proven innocent, Mr. Judgmental.”
“That wasn’t an Aston Martin. So your point is moot.”
Frowning, I clung to my cinnamon roll, the icing melting into the paper napkin. “Are you sure? Because from my research—”
“Research? Why are you researching Aston Martins?” he asked me in his reasonable cop tone, an eyebrow cocked in question.
“Well, yeah, I researched them. Because Win has one. I’m sure he’s told you. I mean, you are his bestie, aren’t you?” I teased and gave his ribs a light nudge with my elbow. “Or don’t all male besties tell each other everything the way female besties do?”
He crossed his arms over his baby-blue T-shirt and shook his head. “I guess we don’t, because I didn’t know he had one. Either way, that wasn’t an Aston Martin, of that you can be sure.”
Well, okay then. I guess Dana knew cars better than I ever would, and he said it so stubbornly, with his chin jutting out at me, I decided to let it go.
So, I shrugged. “Hey, how’s Melba feeling?”
He frowned, his handsome face, tan from windsurfing, freezing. “Feeling?”
“Yeah. I called to see if she wanted to grab lunch, but she said her allergies were bothering her. Didn’t she tell you?”
Now he looked over my head as though there were something incredibly interesting at the front of the store. “Oh, right. I forgot. I guess I don’t consider it sick-sick when it’s her allergies, ya know?”
“But I didn’t ask if she was sick-sick. I asked how she was feeling,” I emphasized.
Gettin' Witched (Witchless in Seattle Mysteries Book 12) Page 3