Grace hastily stacked the rest of the runaway posters on top of the pile. Her mouth was pulled tight as she finished her task. Her posture looked rigid with tension. "As I told you, he's a silly old man who has nothing else to do. Besides, he tells everyone he's watching birds, but he's really just being nosy."
"So Etta did take her walk to the park?" Lacey asked. "Maybe Weston just missed her."
"Of course she did. Etta is very rigid in her routine. She woke from her three o'clock nap, put on her walking shoes, collected her tin can of bird feed from the service porch and walked down to the park to feed the pigeons. Just like always. Believe me, I would know if she had broken her routine. She counts on me to keep her schedule, and she is not terribly pleasant when that schedule gets broken. Now, if you'll excuse me, it's almost time for her two o'clock tea." She sidled past us and hurried away on long legs.
Lacey and I looked at each other. "Do you think she was telling the truth?" Lacey asked.
"If she was, she was awfully darn tense about telling it. I'm thinking there is more to Etta Derricot and her assistant Grace than meets the eye."
"I'm right there with you," Lacey said. "We've got a rival Wiccan member who badly wanted Minnie's position as high priestess, an estranged sister whose assistant just put on a dog and pony show over one simple question and a hulking ex-husband who thinks he's been cursed and somehow also thought he was the beneficiary of Minnie's will."
"Seems like we've got a full plate of possible suspects. That leaves us with just a day and a half to solve the mystery before Lola and you have to head back to Port Danby."
Chapter 25
Seeing Lola and Lacey together reminded me that I needed to make things right with Raine. We were talking but I knew Raine was still sore that I never showed her the photos of Edward on the front stoop of the inn. I was sure it would take a great deal of time before that sting had lessened. After a healthy, thoughtful lunch of salads at a local restaurant, Lola, Lacey and I decided to top off all that fiber with sticky, gooey ice cream. Lola reasoned that if we ate it fast enough, the ice cream might still have a chance to catch the fiber train and get whisked from the station before the fat and sugar particles got stuck. She was a hoot.
We decided to drive back to Firefly Junction for the ice cream so we could bring Raine a bowl of her favorite peanut butter and chocolate swirl. Raine was in her front yard watering the grass with a hose when we pulled up.
"We come bearing melted ice cream," Lola announced as she climbed out of the jeep with Raine's bowl and her own cone of coconut creme.
Raine turned off the hose. "You girls must have been reading my mind. I was just thinking about ice cream." She took the bowl and smiled at Lola and Lacey, but I got more of a faint grin.
The four of us sat on the steps of her front porch to enjoy our frozen treats.
"What have you all been up to?" she asked. "Wait, let me tell you. It's what I do for a living, after all. I'll bet Lacey and Sunni were investigating Minnie's murder, most likely getting themselves into sticky situations to find out the truth about poor Minnie. And Lola was at the flea market hoping to find a few last treasures before going back home."
"Hey, that's spot on," Lola said.
Raine shrugged as she dug her spoon into the ice cream. "Some people actually believe I have a sixth sense." That statement was a pointed jab at her bestie.
"I'll say you do," Lacey said. "It's almost as if you were following us around all day."
"Don't need to," Raine said confidently. "It just comes to me. Thank you for thinking of me with this ice cream. I've had an unusually busy Sunday of tarot card readings."
"Are you busy tonight?" Lola looked at Lacey and me. "By the way, what are we doing tonight?"
"Not sure," I said. "We could hang out at the inn."
"We should do one of those séances to see if we can conjure up that man standing on the front porch next to Mary Richards. Even through the fuzziness, he looks pretty darn dashing." Lola was busy working on her cone as she spoke. She hadn't noticed she'd gotten everyone's attention.
Lacey seemed to be flashing her a brow lift to remind her about the touchy subject. Raine was staring at her with a glint of excitement about the séance suggestion. I couldn't see my face, but I imagined it with my mouth drawn into a tight, forced smile. Lola looked up for a second and was surprised to see she was the center of attention.
"What? I was just trying to come up with something fun to do." Unfazed, she went back to her ice cream.
"Sunni doesn't like séances," Raine said curtly.
I tilted my head at her. "I never said that. I just don't want you to be disappointed when there is no ghost connection."
"And my best friend has no confidence in my ability," she added.
"All right, let's do it," I said. "I have confidence in you. I just don't have confidence in the so-called spirits that roam the halls of the inn." Sometimes, it was hard as heck pretending that I was a non-believer when I had a very good reason to believe.
Raine sat up straighter on her step. "Do you mean it? We can have a séance at the inn?"
"Sure," I said. "But you're not allowed to mope if nothing comes of it. We'll just have fun and you can give it another go."
Lola did a little happy dance with her feet on the porch step. "Yay. I haven't been to a séance since Melony Fitch's slumber party in the fifth grade. And back then, we all freaked ourselves out so much before we turned out the lights, it never really happened."
"I guess it's settled then," I said. "We could order some pizza first."
"I've got one last client at six," Raine said. "Then I'll be over."
"Sounds good. That leaves Lacey and I a few more hours of investigating." I looked at my partner. "Feel like a little trip over to Carl's Custom Bikes?"
"Absolutely. I've been thinking about buying a custom hog to ride to work."
Chapter 26
Carl's Custom Bikes had a corner of desks but most of the vast space was a garage with different project stations. Roland was at one of the stations working on a shiny black chopper with yellow flames on the gas tank.
Lacey and I pulled the collars of our lightweight coats up to look hip enough to belong in a custom bike shop. According to the confused stares we received as we stepped into the shop, it was an ineffective attempt. "Maybe we should have bought some of those rub on tattoos," Lacey muttered as a woman in a tight tank shirt with the shop logo and a left arm and shoulder covered in ink strutted toward us in black biker boots.
"Can I help you?" There was just enough amusement in her tone that I wanted to bite back with a comment about what the strange looking blob on her shoulder was supposed to represent, but it seemed we needed to get past her to talk to Roland. Lacey and I had debated the best way to get a chat with Roland. At first, we considered pretending that Lacey was looking to buy a custom bike for her boyfriend (James, it turned out, loved motorcycles) then we landed on the safer option, our original ruse of acting as a team of journalists looking for anecdotes about Minnie's life. It was actually not that far off since I planned to write about the murder and filling in details about the victim always made for a more compelling read.
I showed the woman, Vixen, according to her nametag, my press pass. "I'm Sunni Taylor from the Junction Times."
Her red lips pursed. "No, thanks. We took an ad out in that throwaway paper last month. It didn't get us any new business." Her black boots rubbed the tile floor as she spun around.
"Actually, I'm a reporter. I don't have anything to do with the ad page."
Her tattoos stretched as she lifted her shoulders with an annoyed sigh and spun back around. "I don't understand why you're here. We're just making custom bikes, nothing shady going on."
I couldn't stop my brows from popping up. No one had said a word about shady stuff, but I put a quick virtual yellow sticky note in my memory to someday dig into Carl's Custom Bike Shop. It seemed there might just be a story there. In the meantime, I had a mo
re pressing topic.
"We're just here to talk to Roland Fisher. We're doing a story on Minnie Fisher, or Smithers. I'm sure you've heard about her death." I added. "We know they are no longer married, but we thought it would be nice to get some stories about Minnie from someone who knew her well."
Vixen's laugh, which could have been categorized more as a cackle, startled Lacey and I so much our jacket collars slipped back down to passive mode. The sound carried through the voluminous building, ricocheting off each wall and attracting the attention of Roland and the other two mechanics.
"I doubt he has many nice stories about his ex," she mused. She flipped a stray curl off her forehead and shouted across the room unexpectedly. "Rolo, people to see ya." We jolted again. Apparently, we hadn't completely recovered from our earlier adventure. In our defense, Vixen's voice was not exactly musical and pleasant. Harsh and earsplitting like a megaphone on steroids was a better way to describe it. If we learned nothing else on our visit, we now knew that Roland Fisher went by the nickname Rolo, just like the commenter on Minnie's blog who accused her of putting a curse on him.
Roland put down the wrench he was holding. His long, droopy moustache teeter tottered over his mouth as he stared across the room trying to figure out why two completely out of place women wanted to talk to him.
"They say they're from the paper, the Junction Times," Vixen added in a more reasonable tone but one that still wouldn't fly in a library or movie theater or, for that matter, any normal place in public.
"I think you've got the wrong guy," he said and picked his tool back up.
"We're writing an article about Minnie Smithers," I called across the room.
His face popped up so fast it could have caused whiplash. "I don't know anything about what happened to her. We never talk anymore."
"We're writing an article about Minnie's life, since she was a longtime resident and business owner in Hickory Flats. We were hoping to get a few words about Minnie from someone who knew her well."
The right side of his moustache lifted with a wry smile. "Yeah, I've got some words about her," he said snidely. It was more than obvious that her unexpected death had not fazed him in the least.
Roland pulled a white rag out of his back pocket and rubbed the sweat off his naked skull before lumbering over in large work boots. He had on grease stained jeans and the same t-shirt we'd seen him in earlier when we watched him through louver slats on a closet door.
Vixen sashayed away in the exact fashion you would expect from someone called Vixen.
"I'm taking my break then, Vix," Roland called to her. He reached into his t-shirt pocket and pulled out a cigar and a book of matches. There was a hitch in his long gait, as if his right leg was bothering him. "I can't smoke in the building." He motioned with his head for us to follow him outside. He was a massive guy, like the type who could break a head or two, yet he was far less intimidating when not being viewed from the inside of a closet. To add to his dangerous ambience, he stopped and grabbed a leather coat off the hook near the door. He pulled it over his massive shoulders. A red and black dragon stared out from the folds of worn black leather and the words Dragon Riders were sewn underneath in bold yellow and orange letters.
We stepped out into the fresh air. Lacey released a breath. I hadn't even considered how the harsh odor of motor oils, lubricants and glossy paint might have been overwhelming to her. It seemed we normal nosed people took every day smells for granted.
He struck a match. "Hope you don't mind but it's my break time. Besides, I don't have much to tell you."
"Please, go right ahead," Lacey said eagerly. I could read her thoughts. She was hoping to match the scent of his cigar with the cigar odor in Minnie's house.
Roland's cheeks sank in as he took three long hard draws on the end of his cigar. Instantly, the acrid, unique scent of cigar filled the air. Lacey's small nose wriggled as she evaluated the scent. She shot me a secret side eyed wink, letting me know it matched the cigar odor in Minnie's house. Since Lacey had picked up the faint cigar scent before Roland entered and searched the house, it was easy to assume he had visited Minnie at an earlier time.
Roland shook out the match flame and squinted at us through a curtain of smoke. The big silver ring on his pinky flashed a mean looking skull as he pulled the cigar from his mouth. "You're writing an article for the paper?" He snorted. "Guess you guys must be running out of good stories. I don't have much to add to your article. I haven't seen or talked to Minnie in months. Here's a quick summary. We were married and happy, then, suddenly, we couldn't stand each other so we split up." He motioned to the notepad I'd pulled out. "Aren't ya going to write that down?" His grin was slightly evil.
I picked up the pen and dashed off a few words. "Married. Happy. Then not happy. Split up."
He chuckled. "Guess you journalists know how to say the most with the least words." Even though he was a good thirty years older than both Lacey and me, he took a moment to leer and look us over. What on earth was Minnie thinking with this one? Sure a Fu Manchu moustache and a leather jacket with a dragon on it had their draw, but seriously, he was creepy.
"But you were just at her house," Lacey piped up unexpectedly and with a statement that nearly rocked him off his large work boot foundation.
Roland sputtered and stumbled over his words enough to send the ends of his moustache out like Pipi Longstocking's wiry braids. "I haven't seen her in months. I've been at work all day," he protested, even though Lacey had not specifically mentioned today.
"No, not today. Of course. It's obvious you've been hard at work," Lacey said with a sweetly painted smile. (She was good.) "But when we interviewed a few of Minnie's neighbors, they mentioned seeing you in the past week. That's what gave us the idea to ask you for some stories about Minnie." She said it with such breezy confidence, Roland had no choice except to confess.
"Oh, right, it was just a quick visit. So quick, I forgot all about it until you mentioned it."
"I'm sure you were shocked and upset when you heard Minnie was murdered," I continued where my brilliant partner left off. "Did she say anything to you on your brief visit, anything that made you think she was in trouble or that someone wanted to kill her? After all, you probably knew her better than most," I added by way of compliment, but he didn't seem to consider that a proud badge to wear.
"I thought I knew her well," he grunted. "But she was so caught up in her witch thing. That's part of the reason we grew apart. It took up so much of her time, she didn't have time for me, her husband." He sounded comically petulant, considering his size and the black leather dragon jacket.
"That's understandable," Lacey said. "Was she close with all her Wiccan friends?"
He finished blowing out a long, curly trail of pungent cigar smoke. "Spent all her time with them. I guess there was one or two she didn't get along with. Then she started the business. After that, I was making my own lunches and dinners."
Lacey and I snuck in a couple of eye rolls.
We needed to get to the more volatile end of their breakup, the supposed curse. There wasn't any straight path, other than asking him outright about it. "A few missed meals doesn't sound too bad. I guess the divorce wasn't one of those all out battles. Did you two remain friends?"
A laugh from deep in his beer belly bounced through the crisp fall air. "Friends? We could have been friends, only Minnie decided that since I left her, I no longer deserved any happiness. I found someone special and we married a year after Minnie and I signed the divorce papers." His big face dropped. Sunlight reflected off his shiny dome. "Gretchen, my new wife, died in a car accident four weeks after the wedding."
Lacey and I experienced the same kind of response, an unexpected blow to the stomach sort of reaction. Neither of us had expected such a tragic end to his short story. The large, menacing man looked genuinely sad.
"We're so sorry to hear that," Lacey said. "What a terrible tragedy. You must have been heartbroken."
"First, I
was heartbroken, then I was filled with rage. Especially after one of Minnie's friends let me know that Minnie had placed a curse on me so that the rest of my life would be filled with terrible events. I broke my femur in a motorcycle accident. My dog got cancer and I had to put him down. There's more. It's just too long to list."
I shook my head. "Sounds like you had an awful string of tragedies and bad luck. Do you think it was truly a curse? I mean, from what we've learned about Minnie and her coven, they were mostly into celebrating nature with harmless rituals. Lots of crystals and incense and sage. Curses aren't really part of their culture."
"Maybe Minnie strayed into something darker," he suggested. "At least, that's what I've heard."
"This person who warned you about the curse—" Lacey said. "By any chance, is her name Wanda?"
"Yeah, that's her. She came here a few months ago and told me that I needed to beware, that Minnie was practicing curses and that I was her target. Guess she never got over the breakup. It's not as if we were in love anymore. On top of that, the house was in her name." He rubbed his moustache and hesitated before continuing. "I'd had a few stains on my record so the loan company told us it would be easier to qualify with just Minnie on the title. Boy, that's come back to bite me now. I paid for half that house and ended up with nothing. Now I'm cursing the day I ever laid eyes on Minnie Smithers." He took another long puff on his cigar and allowed the smoke to escape his nostrils. "That's why I went to see her. I begged her to take the curse off. Do you know what she did?" he asked.
Both of us already knew but we let him continue.
He waved a large arm in the air. "She laughed and told me I was crazy and that there was no such thing as curses."
"I'll bet that angered you," I said, hoping it would lead to a confession.
"Are you kidding? I wanted to strangle her." He lifted a finger and raised a brow. "But I didn't. And I didn't kill her." (Close, but no cigar—well, actually, one cigar and it was starting to make me nauseous.)
Double Trouble Page 12