After checking on Belfry and finding him fast asleep, I pushed open the door of what was once Madam Zoltar’s small apartment, now our storage/coffee room, and wiggled my finger over my shoulder at Win. Pointing to Edward, our grieving boyfriend, who was waiting for me to help him find Kitty’s will, I said, “Let’s do this, Spy Guy.”
“Is everything all right?” Edward asked, his sweet face lined in worry as I reentered Séance Command Central.
I patted him on the hand to reassure him before taking a seat at my brand-new reading table. “Everything’s fine. Sometimes I just get so overwhelmed by the spirits and their shenanigans, I need a moment to gather myself and refocus.”
That’s not a lie, either. Win could make the man above need a moment, so someone like little ol’ mortal me didn’t stand a chance.
I took in a deep breath and looked Edward square in his eye. “Now, where were we?”
Edward reached his forefinger up under his round, thick, black-rimmed glasses and wiped a tear from his eye. “You said my Kitty was here—right here in the room with us.”
“Yes. She absolutely is.” I closed my eyes again and focused my attention on asking the appropriate questions for Win to relay. “Kitty? Edward’s here. He wants you to know he misses you very much and he has a question for you. Can you help?”
“Kitty says to tell Edward she’s busy,” Win supplied in a dry tone.
The house that Win gave me is at the height of renovations with his contractor Enzo, and it’s gorgeous—and he’d lose his ever-lovin’ afterlife if anyone were to mar his precious.
So, yep. When we got back to the house, I was going to draw on the freshly sheetrocked wall with a black Sharpie. Maybe a peace sign, or hashtag #payback.
I stirred in my chair and cleared my throat, our mutually agreed-upon signal for “quit screwin’ around”.
“So, Kitty, like I said, Edward has a question for you. He’d like to know where you left your will. It’s not in the place you said it would be, and your ex-boyfriend, Marlon, is threatening to take poor Snape away from your beloved Edward. Where did you put your will, Kitty?”
“She says she’s still busy.”
I clenched my teeth and muttered under my breath, “Well what is she doing? Her nails?”
Edward gripped my hand with his sweaty cold one. “Are you really talking to her? What is she saying?”
“She said she’s busy. I can’t make her talk to me, Stevie,” Win said in exasperation. “Rule number five hundred and twenty-two clearly states, no former spy interrogation tactics with the spirits. This is inclusive of, but not exclusive to, waterboarding, jumper cables, cigar cutters, any sort of contractor’s tool, all forms of bamboo-ish-like torture, fire, bullets, bombs, anything affiliated with bombs, chains, razors, yelling, berating, and/or other forceful measures that may never be taken when inducing spirit conversation in the afterlife. Your words.”
I grated out a sigh, forgetting Edward was with us. “Oh, we do not either have five hundred and twenty-two rules yet. It’s only in the three hundreds, Melodrama Mama, and I said nothing about razors, but I’m glad you mentioned them. They’re definitely out. Please put that on the list.”
Edward leaned back in his seat, pulling his hand from mine, the vein running along his forehead pulsing. The apprehension on his face was clear. “What? I don’t understand what she means. What do razors have to do with anything? What’s happening?”
The distress on Edward’s face was obvious, from the lines in his forehead shaped in a frown to the downward turn of his trembling mouth.
I patted his hand again then sneezed, giving Win the second agreed-upon signal to quit screwin’ around. If we got to the stage where I coughed, it was DEFCON and Win better be prepared to be on the receiving end of a good tongue-lashing.
“It’s all going to be fine, Edward. Sometimes other spirits interfere with my communication and our signals get crossed.”
“Other spirits?” he asked as he peered at me with watery eyes.
“Yep. Spirits who struggle with simple directions. They’re everywhere. All around us. Some even have names that rhyme with Winterbottom.”
Edward’s face went openly confused.
“You truly are despicable, Stevie Cartwright. You do this all the time and I have absolutely no way of defending myself. It’s cruel.”
I fought a grin, but just as I reached for Edward’s hand once more, there was a commotion outside at the front of the store.
A crowd had gathered, the voices floating toward my ear filled with rising hysteria, lifting above the loud music typically blaring in the food court.
How odd.
But I shrugged it off. Maybe Forrest’s grandfather, Chester, had threatened the kids who skateboarded along the sidewalk with his big broom. Chester was infamous for chasing the local teens when they scooted along the sidewalk, his broom in his chubby, weathered hands, held high over his head as he bellowed at them and called them words like miscreants and rug rats.
Chester made me giggle. I adored this crabby, chubby little man, and he liked me pretty well, too, but we didn’t always have such a mutual admiration for one another.
He was the first person to accuse me of murdering Madam Zoltar, totally unfounded and completely reactionary on his part, but at the time, it had caused me some serious grief.
However, I’d forgiven him since then, and he was now one of the best parts about living here in Ebenezer Falls. I especially loved that he was helping me design gardens for the front of Mayhem Manor. We’d spent hours at the kitchen table, plotting and planning for spring, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands in the soil right alongside him.
Someone screamed outside, cutting off my thoughts.
Edward gripped my hand. “What’s going on?”
I rose from my seat and headed toward the new picture window I’d had installed in the front of the store, peering around our blinking Madam Zoltar sign toward the food trucks parked just across the street.
Frank Jessup, the manager of the local used bookstore, flew across the street, his eyes wide, his long legs eating up the distance between the food trucks and my store. He looked panicked, maybe even afraid as he ran straight for Forrest’s coffee shop, ducking inside.
Forgetting about Edward and Kitty, I ran to our front door and pushed it open, the chimes Madam Zoltar had been so fond of tinkling a haunting sound. We were having an unusually warm, sunny day for March in Washington, which had brought a big lunch crowd to the food court.
I couldn’t see anything through the throng of heads crammed around my favorite taco vendor’s food truck.
“He’s dead!” someone screamed in a light Spanish accent.
My heart began to pound and I tried to swallow, but my throat kept closing up. No. Please don’t let it be…
And then someone confirmed my deepest dread. “Call the police! Tito’s dead! The Taco Man’s dead!”
Chapter 2
Win’s aura surrounded me, his oddly cool yet somehow warm presence enveloping my space. I often equated it to a hug, but I’d never tell my spy that.
If Win knew how much he meant to me, especially arriving at a time in my life when everything had been falling apart, I worried he’d find me too needy, too much for a man who’d likely spent a lot of time on his own as a spy—without distractions like sticky relationships to keep him from doing what he had to do. I’d made it my mission to tread lightly when it came to my squishy girl feelings.
“Damn, Stevie. I’m sorry, love.” Win’s voice caressed my ear, offering the comfort I’d come to relish.
I bit the inside of my cheek. I couldn’t believe it. Tito was dead? I pushed out of the door, walking into the sunshine blindly, my feet more than familiar with the path I was taking because I’d taken it a hundred times before.
It was the path that took me directly to the food truck of my favorite taco vendor in the world. The Salty Sombrero’s tacos were what had kept me from starving to death when I’d
first moved back to Ebenezer Falls after my shunning.
At the time, I was alone, without any family but Belfry, pushing poverty and a cardboard box under a bridge somewhere. Tito’s lunch specials, three for a buck on Tuesdays and Thursdays, allowed me a decent if not exactly low-calorie meal. I’d buy as many tacos as I could fit into my purse and my dwindling budget would allow, keep them in the hotel room Belfry and I were staying in, and eat them cold at night for dinner.
I loved Tito, even though he’d accused me of murdering Madam Zoltar, too. But like Chester, once he’d realized how wrong he was, Tito had gone out of his way to make things right with me.
In fact, just last week as Win and I were cleaning up Madam Zoltar’s, right before we had our grand reopening, he’d brought free tacos for me and the high school kids I’d hired to help.
He’d been all smiles on his roundly cheerful face as he passed out warm, soft-flour-tortilla tacos in twos, chatting with me in broken English about getting his final papers next month.
He’d been so proud to finally be on the path to getting his American citizenship; he’d recited the Pledge of Allegiance to show me how good his English had become. We’d laughed and laughed when he kept saying “One nation under God, invisible” instead of “indivisible”.
Dang. The memory felt like someone had just ripped my heart out by way of my belly button.
And now he was dead. Could this have something to do with the message Win had gotten from the afterlife about a month ago, one that we were never able to pursue due to lack of information?
A spirit had reached out to me via Win. A spirit of Latin descent—a female aura, to be precise. She’d requested help with a “friend” and then she’d up and disappeared. Win had no description of her. He claimed she was just a voice—an older voice who’d said she had a friend here in Ebenezer Falls in need of earthly aide.
I’d told Win to tell her we’d get right on it, but then she’d disappeared.
I stood just on the fringe of the food truck parking lot in the warm sunshine, seeing the colorful sails bobbing on the choppy waters of the Puget, unable to push past the wall of people. Unable or unwilling, that is. I couldn’t pinpoint which.
I think I’m still a little raw from my last bout with murder and my feet are telling my brain to move along, but my heart is telling my brain to piss off.
“Do you suppose this has to do with the voice that contacted me?” Win asked what I’d just been thinking.
I nodded numbly as the wind caught my caftan, whipping it about my feet. “I wondered the same thing. But how could she have known this would happen? In fact, what did happen?”
“Dang. Seems like we can’t keep anybody alive in this durn town,” Chester muttered as he came to stand next to me, threading his arm through mine and leaning into me while we shared the view of the small parking lot.
Many times, when I peeked out the picture window of Madam Z’s between readings, I’d look out over the sea of multicolored trucks parked in a semi-circle end to end and smile at the people who lived in my town and frequented the carts, rain or shine. Families, couples, everyone who made up Ebenezer Falls, strolling and enjoying the one thing we all did universally—eat—and the sight always made my heart warm.
But today, even as the sun beat down on our heads via a cloudless sky, while tulips and daffodils bloomed all around us in the beds the community had built, and despite happy music blaring from speakers set about the court area, the trucks looked less cheerful.
I noted Jacob, the fish-and-chips guy who owned The Deep Sea Diver, wasn’t in the vicinity today. Sally, over at The Sunshine Inn, had mentioned he skirted the permits necessary to park and serve food whenever possible. Today was probably a smart day to avoid the place altogether.
The breeze picked up, bringing with it the call of seagulls and bike horns as Ebenezer Falls celebrated this unusual break in the weather.
Still, my eyes went back to the area where I suspected Tito was sprawled. “Do you know what happened, Chester?”
He shook his silvery-white head and patted my arm, his normally twinkling eyes somber. “Nope, and this time, I’m gonna be real careful about what I say, girlie. Don’t want ya goin’ to jail for round two or we’ll never get those gardens done.”
I’d laugh if I didn’t still remember what the interior of an Ebenezer Falls holding cell looked like, thanks to a whole lot of unfounded suspicion on not just Chester’s part, but the police department’s, too.
“Stevie? You okay?” Forrest asked from behind me, his tall presence strong and reassuring. He placed one of his big hands on my shoulder and squeezed before moving to stand on the opposite side of his grandfather.
“I’m fine. I had nothing to do with this one, if that’s what you’re wondering.” I tried to joke, but inside, my guts were all ripped up.
There’d never be another taco like Tito’s Supreme Grande soft taco slathered with sour cream, guacamole and, of all things, dandelion leaves. Never.
I often thought Tito was trying to fit in with the latest fad of organic meets traditional in order to continue to compete in the marketplace with some of the more foodie-minded trucks. But the line at his door every day was proof enough he didn’t need tofu and quinoa to make a sale.
Thankfully, someone had the smarts to turn off the music, and only hushed whispers now pervaded the food court. The police arrived then in a wave of sirens and flashing red and blue lights, the screams of the ambulance not far behind before their tires came to a screeching halt.
As the crowd parted to allow the paramedics and police through, I got my first real glimpse of Tito, splayed out on the concrete in front of his festive pink and mint-green food truck with the dancing sombrero splashed across the side right next to the menu for all that taco goodness.
He’d often said the colors of his food truck were meant to represent his life. Fun, colorful, like a Mexican hat dance every single day.
“Bloody hell,” Win muttered in my ear—exactly what I was thinking.
“Is that what I think it is?” Chester asked in a somber hush, tightening his grip on my arm.
“I think it is, Pops,” Forrest said, his voice wooden and perplexed, if one’s tone could be such at the same time.
It absolutely was exactly what Chester thought it was.
Cheese.
Tito’s whole shiny ebony head was covered in cheese. The gloriously velvety, mildly spicy, brilliantly orange-yellow cheese he so generously poured over his Not-So-Naked Nachos and topped with slow-cooked brisket, chives and jalapenos. Another of my favorites.
There was also a trail of cheese from his truck to where he’d fallen.
Okay, so after my last experience, here’s where I should bow out, right? March myself right back to my shop, finish Edward’s reading and ignore anything to do with a potential murder case.
Because let’s face it, I’d been to this rodeo. The difference was, this time I hadn’t been anywhere near Tito or his truck when he was found. Unlike the last time, when I was in Madam Z’s shop with her dead body when the police arrived—with Chester hot on their heels, ready to burn me at the stake.
Back then, it never even occurred to me that Madam Z had been murdered. My first thought was that she’d had a heart attack. And that had been my first thought here, too, but I’d learned real quick about first impressions after my run-ins with the law and a real live killer.
But then I had a crazy niggle that what happened here was none of those things. The one I used to get when I was a witch. The one that was never wrong—and that niggle said Tito’s death had to do with foul play.
“Heart attack? Stroke?” Chester asked, his gruff voice smaller today.
“It sure looks that way,” I agreed, despite the gnawing…nay, burning protest of my gut. “Maybe he fell into the vat of cheese before he stumbled out here? He always had that huge pot of it simmering on the stove by the back door of the truck. Maybe he was trying to get help when he did?”
So Win must be feeling that niggle, too. But two murders in the matter of as many months? Here in Ebenezer Falls, where crime was on record with an all-time low for a suburb just outside Seattle?
“I smell fish, and it’s not Forrest’s breath,” Win murmured.
I shook him off, riveted by what was happening around Tito’s body as the paramedics and police gathered to assess. His white apron, typically covered in all manner of whatever food he was cooking that day, was still around his neck but untied at his waist, suggesting maybe he’d just been putting it on. It lay flat on top of him, a stark white against the dark concrete.
He’d clearly fallen out of the truck backward, landing flat mere steps away. His arms were spread out beside his body, suggesting he hadn’t even tried to stop his fall. His face troubled me the most; the cheese was beginning to harden over his skin in the sun, turning dull, while bits of jalapeño stuck to his nose and cheeks.
As the police began to move people along, I noted for the first time a man in the very back of the crowd, his youthful face a mask of pain, as though he were on the verge of crying. His eyes were a startling green, shimmering with unshed tears.
Handsome, with deep chestnut hair and chiseled good looks, he looked away, his wide football-player shoulders trembling when the paramedics finally covered Tito’s body after placing him on the gurney.
“Titooooo!” a woman wailed, her agonizing sob slicing through the warm breeze as said woman pushed her way through the parting crowd.
Everyone turned to see Tito’s estranged wife, Magdalena—or Maggie, as we called her here in town—stumble toward the gurney, a tissue in her hand, her long black shawl with the red fringe falling from her rounded shoulders.
“Didn’t she throw Tito out just last month?” Win wondered.
“I thought she and Tito were getting divorced?” Chester mirrored Win’s thoughts.
“I knew there was trouble. I was right outside here, changing the sandwich board, just before she confronted him about something. She caught him upside the head with a broom, yelling and carrying on, crying too—left in a real huff. Next thing I heard from the gossip mill was she’d told him she wanted a divorce and was staying with her daughter, Bianca,” Forrest said.
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