Ghostly Garlic

by Ami Diane

  Making her own fluttering noises, Marge threw the curtains closed with a flourish that would’ve made Liberace proud while Libby locked and bolted the front door. They moved silently, ensuring they would be neither seen nor interrupted.

  Finally, they settled onto the couch. Max, who’d been watching them curiously, thumped his tail when they directed their attention his way.

  “Alright.” Libby dug out the vial. “There should be enough in here for five doses. That’s two for each of us and one to spare.”

  Uncapping the top, she used a tincture dropper and squeezed the full amount into her mouth. It tasted of summer mornings and—not surprisingly—dog. Grimacing, she handed it over to Marge who watched Libby with a careful eye.

  She gave a thumbs up. “Not bad.”

  Satisfied by this reaction, Marge squeezed a tincture-full into her own mouth and gagged. Her body convulsed to keep from spewing.

  When she finally pulled her hand away from her mouth, her voice came out raspy, throwing out curse words like they were old clothes.

  “That’ll wake you up. Oddly, not one of the worst ones I’ve tasted.”

  Libby’s stomach sank. “Seriously? I guess I have much to look forward to.”

  “How long before it starts—”

  Hey! Hi! Wanna play?

  Max made his usual panting and whining noises, even releasing a soft bark. Libby heard all of it. However, a strange, cognitive reaction took place where thoughts and images bubbled up, almost as if the response grew in her head organically as her own.

  Marge drew back, her manicured eyebrows raising. “That’s really disconcerting.”

  “I know, right? Kind of creepy?”

  Creep-what? Hey, do you have a ball? Let’s play! Max’s tail went from a tick-tocking motion to full-on windshield wiper mode. He hopped along the floor, eager to play fetch.

  “Maybe in a little bit, bud.” Libby scratched behind his ears. “I want to ask you about your human.” She wasn’t sure what sort of preamble or hedging she should do to broach the topic with Max, but she drew from her mostly one-sided conversations with Orchid and Jasper.

  The mention of his human had an instant effect. Max’s tail stilled, and his ears drooped. A small whine escaped him.

  My human sleeps forever now.

  “Yes. I’m so sorry, bud, but your human is no more.”

  Another whimper preceded him dropping to the floor, his chin resting between his paws. She knew of nothing else to do but console him, so she petted him until he shifted and licked her fingers.

  She glanced at the clock. There was still plenty of time left before the potion decayed. Across from her, Marge seemed to have the same concern because she glanced at the clock then mouthed a question. It was either, Hermaphrodite olive? or How much time left? Libby bet it was the latter.

  “Forty-five minutes left,” she voiced aloud, unsure of why the woman felt the need to be quiet. Then, to Max, she said, “We want to find the bad humans who hurt your human, but we need your help.”

  You want my help? Sure! I’ll help. I love helping. Oh! Then after that, we can play! Do you know how to dig holes?

  “Uh-huh. Yep. Anyway, can you tell us what happened?”

  When?

  “When your human went to sleep forever.” His head tilted with that clueless yet expressive face that only dogs had mastered, so she elaborated. “Was there another human in your house when your human became no more?”

  His tail twitched. Yes! The bad human scared my human. My human barked and ran. I ran too, so my human would not be alone.

  “That’s really kind of you. I’m glad you were there for her. Did this human hurt your human?” The image of Beatrice’s bloody throat flashed through Libby’s mind unbidden.

  Yes! The bad human hurt my human in the throat. Then my human slept.

  Marge spoke up. “Can you describe the bad human?”

  Describe? It was a human.

  “Right,” Libby said, “I know. But were they taller than me? Bigger?” She used hand gestures for each descriptor.

  I didn’t notice. Once my human started barking, I hid. His tail waged war with the floor. Can we play now?

  Libby shot Marge a helpless look.

  “Maybe you’re asking the wrong question,” Marge said softly. “Use his strengths.”

  Unsure of what she meant, Libby motioned for the apothecary to give it a try.

  “Max,” Marge began, “did this bad human have a peculiar scent?”

  The dog’s tongue, which had been hanging out of his mouth, slurped back inside at the mention of his name. He padded over to the potionist and sat on his haunches.

  Scent? Yes! What a smell. I will never forget it.

  “Can you describe it?” Marge prodded. “What did it smell like?”

  Like playing in that big water. You know, that water that tastes funny.

  “The ocean?” Libby threw out.

  Yes, that is what my human called it. Like the ocean, fish, and that salty moisture humans create.

  “Sweat?” Marge guessed.

  His tail thumped.

  “Max,” Libby said, drawing his attention from the floor he’d just started sniffing, “what did the bad human do after hurting your human?”

  I don’t know. I heard it move around, searching, but I didn’t see. I hid. I’m a good dog!

  “Yes, you are.” Marge rubbed his head which sent him rolling onto his back so she had access to his belly. His tongue lolled out of the side of his mouth as she dragged her fingers over his exposed underside.

  Libby rolled her eyes. “You two want to be alone?”

  “Hush, Red. And get me some dog treats for our good boy, will you?”

  Libby glanced at the clock in her car as she pulled out of Marge’s driveway. It was fifteen minutes before five, the time when half of the small town shut down.

  She shifted into park again, her mind churning. The conversation with Max had yielded zero suspects. It wasn’t as if they could line up the entire town and have him sniff every person to find a matching scent.

  They would need a new approach. As slow as a flower bud opening, an idea formed. Maybe there had been another witness nearby, one the police wouldn’t know about.

  On a whim, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed the local rag, the Oyster Tribune, and asked a rather surly receptionist if she could speak with Marty.

  “He’s at the marina interviewing some of the local fishermen for a piece.”

  Libby thanked her and hung up. She pulled out of Marge’s driveway and headed into town.

  When she got to the marina, she pulled into the nearly empty lot. The dock creaked beneath her feet as she wandered in search of the journalist.

  Boats bobbed in the dark water, pulling at their moors. One of them, a small, familiar sailboat, beckoned her like a siren. She would never tell Marge this, but she secretly hoped to go out on Bluebirds Fly again—sans sailing potion. If the old bird was hell on wheels, she was even worse on the high seas.

  Marty was a hard guy to miss, dressing the part like a throwback, hard-nosed newspaper reporter ripped from the pages of a novel. She spotted the short man on a bench, making notes. His trench coat fluttered in the breeze, and his fedora hid his face.

  She dropped beside him, startling him. “Heya, Marty. Long time, no see.”

  His wide expression instantly shifted to narrow, beady eyes. “What do you want?”

  “Oh, come on, Marty. That’s no way to talk to a friend.”

  “We’re not friends. You nearly got me kicked out of—” he glanced around “—you know what.”

  “What did I have to do with that? Wait, you mean to tell me, they were mad at you for stopping Richard from killing me? Seriously?”

  His head tilted enough to let the light find his eyes. Gray sky reflected in their pools, mixing with fear. The emotion flickered away so quickly, she couldn’t be certain she’d seen it.

  Tucking his notepad into his jacket,
he began to stand. She gripped his forearm tight enough to keep his backside on the bench but loose enough that he couldn’t press charges.

  “I just have a quick question, then I’ll get out of your hair. I don’t want to cause trouble for you, and I know you don’t want anyone to see us speaking.”

  He tugged the brim of his fedora lower over his eyes and settled back. “What do you want?” he asked again, only with less vehemence than before.

  “You hear about Beatrice?”

  “I did. My condolences.”

  “Thank you. I was just wondering who was assigned to watch her?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Come on, Marty. We’ve had this conversation before. I know the AWC assigns members to stalk us. You told me as much. I just want to know who was assigned to stalk Beatrice.”

  “If by ‘stalk’ you mean keeping tabs to make sure the rest of us are safe—”

  “Fine. Let’s pretend I said that, instead.”

  “You want me to tell you who her assigned watcher was? Why? So you can accuse them of murder?”

  “Well, to be fair, the last watcher, as you call them, did commit murder.” He opened his mouth to argue, so she forged ahead. “But no, I don’t want to accuse Bea’s watcher of murder.”

  However, they sure as heck would move to the top of her suspect list, but he didn’t need to know that.

  “The reason I’m asking is if they were assigned that night to watch her, they might have seen Bea’s intruder.”

  He drummed his fingers on the bench, staring across the bay. After a long while, he asked, “And what do I get in return?”

  “Karma points?”

  “Not good enough.”

  “You sure? You might need them with the company you keep.” She bit her lip, afraid to ask the next question. “What do you want in return?”

  “Another murder in a small town like this… could be a big story. You and that witch doctor were the ones to discover Beatrice, right?”

  How could he possibly know that?

  “I’m just going to ignore the whole witch doctor accusation. Are you asking me to tell you about an ongoing investigation?”

  “Your words, not mine.”

  She turned, searching the dark waters as if they would tell her what to do. “There’s nothing to say. She didn’t show up for our book club meeting and when no one heard from her, we went to her house to check on her.”

  “And?”

  “And she was dead.”

  “The yokels obviously suspect foul play. So, there’s something you’re leaving out.”

  “I can’t tell you any more than that.” Her tone edged with anger. “Look, if you won’t give me a name, I’ll… I’ll…” She dredged through her mind for a threat he’d respond to. “I’ll sneak my Mud Butt potion into your coffee or food when you least suspect it.”

  Never mind that she just invented the potion on the spot, he appeared to believe the threat.

  “W-what is that?”

  She leaned in, dropping her voice to just above a whisper, saying, “You really don’t want to know,” and followed it up with an exaggerated wink.

  His resolve crumbled like a dandelion in wind. “I can’t give you a name,” he said pointedly and slowly. “It would violate my membership if I told you that Brent Stevens was Beatrice’s watcher.”

  He popped off the bench faster than a jack-in-the-box and darted away. She didn’t give chase, feeling slightly guilty about threatening him with a non-existent potion. But now that she thought about it, Mud Butt wasn’t such a bad idea. Marge would certainly appreciate such a potion for Bruce. Maybe if Libby ever got to the proficiency of actually creating recipes, she’d give it a go.

  Her gaze drifted to the brown speck that was Marty ducking behind a building. So Brent Stevens was Beatrice’s assigned stalker. The very same man who had been spying on them at the car wash. Had he taken his stalking duties to the next level?

  Chapter Twelve

  LIBBY’S GLOVED HANDS dug into the mulch, pulling it away from the stems of her chamaemelum nobile, or chamomile, to prevent mold. Now that the weather was warming, she was thinning the depth of the mulch to a variance of one to two inches in the greenhouse.

  She worked from the daisy-like flowers to the related species beside it which had creamier-colored double flowers. Basically, Flore Pleno had twice as many petals on the flower and reminded Libby of a clover.

  She grabbed her trowel and continued evening out the mulch. While her hands worked, her mind wandered to Brent Stevens, the coalition member assigned to watch Beatrice, incidentally, the same man who’d been hungrily staring at them at the car wash. Had he been planning the murder then?

  She shivered at the thought. Just because he was a creeper didn’t mean he was the one who killed Beatrice. As of now, she would treat him as a possible witness and rein in her suspicions.

  Her next move was to interview him, which might prove to be tricky. Marge might know a way. The potionist closed Mother Nature’s Apothecary early on Saturdays, and they typically fit a potion lesson in before dinner.

  Her back aching, she took a break to guzzle water then turned her attention outside. The towering, bigleaf maple tree at the corner of her yard danced in a summer breeze. Its freshly born emerald leaves foreshadowed the stretch of a mild season and whispered possibilities of more sunshine.

  By the time it was nearing noon, her stomach hugged her spine in hunger. She washed up in the kitchen before putting a pot on the stove to make soup. As the chicken broth bubbled to a hard boil, a knock came at the front door. She threw in the noodles, turned down the heat so it simmered, then went to let in the apothecary.

  “Why didn’t you let yourself in?”

  Marge pointed at the exterior side of the door. It was bare. Libby hadn’t been a homeowner long, but her thirty-something years of life had taught her that doorknobs typically adorned doors and made opening them much easier.

  She sighed. “This house, I swear. I’m never going to get used to it.” Who knew where the knob currently was.

  “Smells good in here.” Marge’s nose worked back and forth like Max’s as she stepped into the foyer.

  On their way to the kitchen, they climbed over the couch that had taken up residence in the hall.

  “Sorry, I forgot to take us the other way.”

  “Do you want help moving the couch back to the living room?”

  “That’s okay. It’ll be gone in a few hours, anyway. Might as well save our backs.”

  Marge’s handbag landed on the counter with a heavier thunk than usual, drawing a suspicious glance from Libby.

  “Do you suffer from back problems carrying that thing?”

  “I did before my Defying Gravity potion.”

  “Makes sense—hey, is that the anti-gravity potion you lent to Shelly? The one that spilled on my shirt, making me look like a spring breaker in a Girls Gone Wild video?”

  Marge smoothed out an invisible wrinkle in her shirt.

  “Marge?”

  “Yes, Red?”

  Libby sighed. “Never mind. So, what’s on the agenda?” She ladled out generous helpings of chicken noodle soup for each of them.

  “I was thinking we should start getting into defense potions.”

  Libby stiffened. “You think I’m ready for that?”

  “You’re getting there, and it’s as good a time as any, really.”

  “But…” Libby searched for the right way to phrase her question. “They won’t be dark potions, will they?”

  “What do you take me for?”

  “A crazy potionist.”

  Marge’s mouth opened a moment before it snapped shut. “Okay, you got me there. I may push the boundaries, but I’ve never made a forbidden potion, and I don’t intend to start.”

  Libby broke the awkward silence that followed by slurping her soup loudly, burning off several taste buds in the process. While they ate, she filled Marge in on her conversati
on with Marty the evening before. The older potionist seemed a bit upset at first about not tagging along, but she got over it quickly when they began strategizing ways to speak with Brent.

  “However we approach him, we’re doing it together,” Marge insisted.

  “Agreed.”

  While carrying their empty bowls to the sink, Libby’s cell phone rang. It took a moment to put the dishes down and to wipe her hands before she checked the caller ID.

  She pressed “ignore” and laid the device back on the counter.

  “Who was that?”

  “Your mom. Sorry, bad joke. It was no one.”

  “A solicitor?”

  Libby ran hot water in the sink and didn’t respond.

  “Could it be the same person whose call you dodged earlier?”

  Libby loaded the dishes into the dishwasher after rinsing them. Turning, she leaned against the counter, her shoulders slumping. “It’s James, my ex-fiancé.”

  “What’s he want?”

  “I have no idea. And I don’t want to know.”

  Marge seemed to have a fair amount more to say on the matter, but Libby turned away, wiping down the counter in preparation for their lesson, thereby ending the discussion on all things James.

  Once they’d closed all blinds and ensured all doors were locked, Marge tipped the contraband in her purse onto the counter.

  “You know,” Libby began, “if you were ever arrested and a cop went through your purse, you would have a lot of explaining to do.”

  She shrugged. “Hasn’t been so bad.”

  “Oh my gosh. They’ve already done it?” Libby rolled onto the balls of her feet in excitement. “Have you ever been arrested?” Her imagination exploded with images of Marge’s mugshot and ten different ways of how she could get ahold of one.

  “They all know I have my own homeopathic shop,” Marge said, her nostrils flaring as she artfully dodged the question.

  “Yes, but how many apothecaries carry digital scales in their purse?” Libby nudged the offending device with her finger.

  “Lots of people.”

  “Try again.”

  “Some people?”

  “Nope.”

  “Huh.”

  A noise near the sliding door caused them both to whirl around. Orchid slipped through the cat door, tail crooked over her furry head.