That Old Witch!: The Coffee Coven's Cozy Capers: Book 1

by M. Z. Andrews

  “Me too,” groaned Phyllis.

  Loni passed out two stacks of books, and then everyone looked at Hazel.

  “What?!” she asked, staring all of the women down. “I can’t help right now. Some woman named Katy Perry is ranking her celebrity lovers from best to worst. I’ve got to see which one’s the best one.” She looked down at her magazine. “Just for future reference.”

  Gwyn palmed her forehead. “Oh, Mother,” she sighed.

  “Inquiring minds want to know,” said Char with a laugh.

  Thirty minutes later, the women lounged around the living room in various positions, rubbing their sore body parts.

  “I think it’s time to call it a night, ladies,” said Phyllis, massaging the balls of her feet.

  Char stood up and arched her back, stretching an arm out over her head. “I agree. I don’t think we’re going to find the book tonight.”

  Gwyn’s head rolled back on her shoulders. “I don’t know that we’re ever going to find it. I don’t think it’s in the house, girls. We’ve looked everywhere.”

  “We’ll sleep on it. Maybe we’ll think of another place Kat might have hidden the book,” said Loni.

  Phyllis stood up and put the last stack of books back on the bookshelf. “Lon’s right. Maybe we should meet back up tomorrow night.”

  Gwyn sighed. “I can’t tomorrow night. I’m taking a group of my Village residents on a night walk to the Falls Festival. I think it will be neat seeing the Falls all lit up at night. I think my group will enjoy it.”

  “Oh, I was planning to go to that with Vic. Mind if we tag along?” asked Char.

  Gwyn smiled broadly. Having company might be kind of fun. And if Char and Vic went, they could help her keep an eye on her mother. “Sure! That would be great! You’re all welcome to come!”

  “Well, I can’t,” huffed Loni. “You’re lucky I even left the house to come over here.”

  “You need to get out more,” chided Char. “It’s not healthy to keep yourself locked away in your house like that, day after day and week after week. You’re breathing in the same old dirty air day in and day out. You should come with us.”

  Loni lowered her brows as she peered at Char. “My air’s not dirty.”

  Char smiled at her. “I didn’t mean your air was dirty. I just meant you need to get some fresh air. It’s not healthy to stay cooped up all day.”

  Loni crossed her arms across her chest in a pout.

  “How about you, Phil?” asked Gwyn. “I’d love to have you!”

  Phyllis nodded. “Alright, I suppose I could make an appearance. It might be fun.”

  Gwyn threw both hands in the air. “Yay! Oh, girls, this will be fun getting to hang out again. I’ve missed you all so much over the years!”

  “Gwynnie,” Char began, “Phil and I meet for coffee at her daughter’s restaurant every morning. You’re sure welcome to join us. You and Hazel, that is.”

  “You too, Lon,” added Phyllis.

  “Oh, yes, of course. I wasn’t trying to exclude you, Lon,” said Char. “I just figured if you wouldn’t leave the house for a night walk, you probably wouldn’t want to come have coffee with us in public in the light of day.”

  Loni sat quietly in her spot. Gwyn could see the wheels quietly turning in her mind.

  Gwyn smiled at the girls. “Mom and I would love to join you for coffee. What’s the name of the restaurant?”

  “Habernackle’s Bed, Breakfast, and Beyond downtown,” said Phyllis. “It’s a B&B, but they also have a nice little restaurant.”

  “What time do you meet in the mornings?” asked Gwyn.

  “It varies on occasion, but generally we like to be there by eight,” said Char. “We get a little chat session in and then get on with our day. I like to go walking before it gets too hot in the afternoon.”

  Gwyn nodded. “Eight it is! I like to have projects at The Village started by nine, so that will work perfectly.” She looked outside. “Well, girls, it’s getting late. We should probably go. Char, don’t forget to take that chicken to the curb.”

  “Yes!” she said, holding a finger up as if she’d just remembered as well. Char locked the front door. “Why don’t we just all go out the back? That way we won’t forget to take that with us.” She shut the lights off in the living room as Gwyn pulled Hazel up from her recliner. Slowly, the five women filtered out of the house through the sliding door in the kitchen.

  Char locked the door behind them and stuck the key in the pocket of her pink polyester pants. Gwyn stooped over to pick up the chicken they’d bagged. She could still make out a faint scent, even through the plastic.

  “Ooh, this is horrible,” said Gwyn, holding the bag out by two fingers at a distance. “Where are her garbage cans?”

  “Around the corner. We’ll put them in there and drag the can down to the curb, so that the garbage men will take them. Tomorrow is trash day on this side of town, I believe.”

  The moon was bright, but it was a windy evening. As a breeze whipped through the backyard, it moved the trees overhead, causing moonlit shadows to dance across the rose garden in Kat’s backyard. Gwyn stopped short of walking around the house. “What is that?” she asked with surprise.

  “Kat’s flower garden?” asked Char. When Gwyn nodded, she continued, “My goodness, that woman had quite the green thumb.”

  “She used to talk about her flowers when we visited on the phone, but I had no idea her garden was quite so elaborate!” breathed Gwyn with a broad smile.

  “Would you ladies like to take a quick tour?” asked Char.

  Loni’s eyes darted uncomfortably around the backyard. She’d put her veil and cowboy hat back on inside the house, and the backyard was fenced in, but on a bit of an incline, and it looked down at her house, which was only a block away. “We can’t stay out here long. I don’t want anyone to see me!”

  “Oh, hush, Loni Hodges. You’re being ridiculous! No one cares that you’re over here, and if they did, they certainly can’t see you!” hissed Phyllis.

  “Especially in that ridiculous ensemble,” added Char.

  “Fine,” grumbled Loni.

  Gwyn looked out over the garden. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing! Four arbors with vining flowers growing all over them stood central at the four sides of the garden. A picturesque white fence ran around the perimeter, and an amazing assortment of carefully cultivated rose bushes covered every square inch inside of the fence. “It’s so lovely!”

  “Isn’t it?” asked Char, entering the rose garden beneath the arbor nearest the house.

  The rest of the girls followed and everyone oohed and aahed over the beautiful plants. The vegetation was already lush and green. The fresh, floral scent was intoxicating and made Gwyn smile from ear to ear. A few of the early bloomers had already begun to show signs of blooming, but many plants were still working on their buds.

  Gwyn stopped in the center of the garden, where a big black cauldron had collected a hazy green load of rainwater. “This is going to be a mosquito magnet,” she said.

  Phyllis stopped walking and looked down at the cauldron. “What’s Kat got a cauldron in her garden for?” she asked.

  Char held a hand to the side of her face. “If you ask me, I think Kat liked to tip the scales in her favor.”

  Gwyn looked at Char curiously. “What does that mean?”

  Char gave a little shrug. “Kat was very particular about her flowers. She entered them in the gardening contest every year, and every year she won. I suppose the fact that she’s a witch might have had a little to do with her success. If you know what I mean?”

  Gwyn sucked in her breath. “You mean she used her powers to enhance the flowers? She cheated?!”

  Char laughed. “If you call that cheating?”

  “I do call that cheating!” breathed Gwyn.

  “Oh, relax, Gwynnie. Everyone can’t be as perfect as you,” sighed her mother from behind her.

  Gwyn’s mouth snapped shut. Sh
e hated when her mother told her she was perfect. She wasn’t perfect. Far from it.

  “There have to be some perks to being a witch,” said Char. “Don’t you think? It can’t all be ‘burn her at the stake.’”

  Phyllis rubbed her chin. “You don’t suppose she was cheating the day when she slipped and fell out here, do you?” she pondered. “Maybe it was the spell that killed her?”

  “Maybe,” said Char with a shrug. They were all quiet for a few long moments, considering what the possible fate of Kat had actually been. Suddenly, Char sucked in a breath. “Omigosh, girls! I just thought of something!”

  12

  “Do tell,” said Loni excitedly.

  “Does anyone know exactly what day it was that Kat passed away?” asked Char, scanning the faces of her friends caught in the moonlit shadows of Kat’s rose garden.

  Phyllis shook her head. “All I heard was that she was found dead by the paperb—paperman. He and the cops said she’d been there for quite a while, by the looks of it. At least two weeks.”

  “Right, but we don’t have an exact date, do we?” asked Char.

  “No, not that we know of,” said Gwyn. “Why?”

  Char smiled and gave her a tip of the head. “Bear with me for a few minutes, and I’ll explain why I want to know.” She took a breath. “Okay. So it was the paperman that found her. If I’m to understand what he told the police, he noticed that something was wrong because Kat’s papers were piling up in front of the door, which he found odd. Kat usually picked her paper up off the porch every day. So that means…”

  Gwyn cut in excitedly. “That the oldest paper on her porch was either from the day that she died or the day after!”

  Char’s hands lurched out with gusto. “Exactly what I was thinking!”

  “Let’s go check it out,” said Phyllis, leading the charge to the front of the house.

  Loni sighed and left the flower garden to sit on a swinging love seat between the house and the garden. “I’ll just stay right here. Someone might see me out in front.”

  Hazel nodded. “I’m with crazy pants here. All this running around is too much for me. I’ll keep her company back here,” she said, hitching a thumb over her shoulder.

  “Alright, let’s go, girls,” said Char. Then she looked over her shoulder at Loni and Hazel. “We’ll be right back. You two sit tight.”

  “Sit tight? I can’t sit any tighter than I am right now,” cracked Hazel. “Heck, I’m so tight, I can barely touch my knees. They shouldn’t call it getting old—they should call it getting tight.”

  Gwyn pointed at Loni. “Please don’t let her out of your sight.”

  Loni saluted Gwyn. “Aye-aye, Cap’n.”

  Char, Phyllis, and Gwyn rushed around to the front of the house. On their way, Gwyn tossed the rotten chicken into the garbage, and she and Phyllis pulled the garbage can around through the gate and to the curb. Then they met Char up on the porch. She was already holding her awakened cell phone over the newspapers at the front door, trying to read the dates in the dim glow.

  Gwyn and Phyllis sat on the front steps next to her. Each of them pulled out their phones too, lit them up, and began organizing the newspapers. “I’ve got papers from the fourteenth and fifteenth,” said Gwyn.

  “I’ve got the twentieth, the twenty-first, and the twenty-second,” Phyllis called out.

  “I’ve got all the ones from this week,” said Char, bundling them up and scooting them off to the side.

  Phyllis made a face. “Why are they still delivering papers to a dead woman?”

  The thought hadn’t occurred to Char. She plunged out her bottom lip and widened her eyes. “Maybe her bill’s paid through a certain date,” she suggested. “Maybe they have to.”

  Gwyn ignored that topic of interest and announced, “I found papers from the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth. Girls, I don’t see anything prior to April tenth, do you?”

  Phyllis shook her head. “Nope. I don’t have anything before the nineteenth.”

  Char shook her head too. “Me either.”

  Their eyes widened in unison. “That means that on the tenth, Kat didn’t get her newspaper. When are papers delivered around here?” asked Gwyn.

  “We get ours first thing in the morning. Usually before the sun’s even up,” said Char.

  “Alright, then. Well, if the newspaper gets delivered in the mornings, then we know Kat had to have died the night of the ninth,” rationalized Gwyn.

  Phyllis frowned at her. “She could have died on the tenth.”

  Gwyn shook her head. Her face was serious, with furrowed eyebrows and a mouth set firmly in a line. “Not likely. Kat had taken that chicken out to thaw for supper. I don’t know about you ladies, but I don’t usually take my meat out to thaw until about lunchtime. Chicken doesn’t need to be sitting out all day. She probably took it out that afternoon and had gotten her paper that morning. I think she was alive the morning of the ninth and dead before the next paper showed up on the tenth.”

  Char clapped her hands with fervor. “Oh, Gwynnie, you’re so smart.”

  Phyllis groaned. “Well, any of us could have put that together.”

  Char swatted at Phyllis’s shoulder. “Is it past your bedtime? You seem grumpier than usual.”

  Phyllis rolled her eyes and leaned back against a baluster on Kat’s porch. “Yes, as a matter of fact, it is past my bedtime. What’s the point of all of this? I’d like to go home and get my beauty sleep.”

  Char let out a puff of air. “Hold your damn horses, woman. I’m getting to it.” She took a deep breath, lowered her torso, and began her theory. “Here’s what hit me when we were out in Kat’s garden. In early April, this huge peculiar storm rolled through town late one night. Everyone in Aspen Falls speculated about it. In fact, it was so strong that it even made the papers that next morning.”

  Phyllis wagged a finger at Char while nodding. “I remember that storm. Damn near blew the chair off of my patio. I had to go out in the rain to get it before it blew over the railing. Got soaked to the skin in that storm!”

  “Yes! I remember you telling me that,” said Char. Then she looked at Gwyn. “Every year around the same time, we get a storm that is eerily similar. The forecasters are never able to predict it. It’s never on any radar. It’s like it just pops up out of nowhere. The only thing consistent about it is that it always happens sometime in the early spring.”

  “You think the storm had something to do with Kat’s death?” asked Gwyn.

  Char lifted a single brow and tilted her head to the side. “What if Kat was the one that’s brewed those storms up all these years?”

  Gwyn sucked in her breath. “You mean it was part of a spell?”

  “Do you think that’s why the cauldron was in her garden?” asked Phyllis.

  “Could be. Maybe she was doing a spell, and somehow, it killed her,” suggested Char. “Now, here’s what I’m thinking. We look at the papers from the tenth or the eleventh. If either one of those talks about that storm, then we know that was probably Kat messing around with the spell book.”

  Gwyn smiled excitedly as she clasped her hands to her chest in front of her. “Eee,” she squealed. “Char, you’re a genius. I could kiss you!”

  Char made a silly face and then held out her palm to distance Gwyn. “I know you’re probably sexually frustrated because you’re without a husband and all, but we should clarify things right now. I’m not interested. I’m a married woman, in case you didn’t know!”

  Gwyn giggled.

  “Would you two quit flirting and give me those papers!” chided Phyllis. “I’m dying to know if Char’s theory is right!”

  Char took the two oldest copies of the Aspen Falls Observer and opened them both up. “Only one way to find out!”

  She flipped open the paper from April eleventh to the weather highlights and saw nothing related. Then she opened the paper from the tenth. Char’s eyes widened as she jammed a stubby finger at the headlines on the front
page of the paper. “Aha!” she yelled. “Forty-Fifth Annual Freak Storm Hits Aspen Falls, Meteorologists Fail to Predict Once Again,” she read out loud. “A freak storm unleashed chaos on Aspen Falls in the late evening hours of April ninth, causing trees on the east end of town to fall on power lines. Power outages lasting over three hours were reported in parts of Aspen Falls.”

  Gwyn’s blue eyes widened. “You were right, Char! It had to have been Kat!”

  “It had to have been,” echoed Phyllis.

  “Well, now we know when she died, and we also know that she was likely doing a spell in her garden when she died,” said Char. “You’d think after forty-five years of doing the exact same spell, she’d have known to be more careful.”

  “Poor Kat,” whispered Gwyn. It broke her heart that her old friend had died in such a careless accident.

  “But now we know she probably had the spell book with her outside when she died,” suggested Phyllis.

  Char nodded. “This is very true. But it’s not out there. That paperman was the one to have found her. Maybe he found the book and decided to keep it.”

  “We may never know,” said Gwyn quietly.

  Phyllis’s head reared back. “My heinie we’ll never know!” She stood up. “If he stole the book, we’re going to get it back!”

  Char nodded. “I agree with Phil. That’s our book. It kept us apart for decades. I’m not about to let it go. Kat wanted us to have it.”

  Gwyn wrung her hands nervously. “Well, how do we get it back?”

  Char rubbed her chin. “I don’t know. I need some time to think. Let’s meet for coffee in the morning and work out a plan!”

  Phyllis rubbed her hands together devilishly. “Whoever stole that book better watch out. The Coffee Coven is on the case!”

  13

  The next morning, Habernackle’s was a hopping place. As usual, Sergeant Bradshaw and his friends took up residence in the big booth in the corner. He sat on a chair at the end of the booth as he had the day before. A group of tourists with young children sat noisily reading menus in another booth against the outer windowed wall, likely in town for the Falls Festival that evening. Several other tables were filled with couples having breakfast and chatting pleasantly. And to the left of the front door, a big group of some type had spread out across three tables and a booth. A man with brown curly hair stood in front of them, delivering a lecture of some sort while the group stared up at him, listening with interest.