by Morgana Best
“Two of what?” Thyme said in confusion.
I hurried to explain. “That Ruprecht over there is a onesie. The other Ruprecht is the real Ruprecht.”
Both Mint and Thyme stared at the onesie Ruprecht and then at the real Ruprecht. “Are you sure?” Thyme asked. “How can you tell the difference?”
“Because the onesie Ruprecht appeared at Camino’s just after I did the spell that made the onesies come to life,” I explained.
Thyme did not appear convinced. She addressed the onesie Ruprecht. “Are you the real Ruprecht?”
The onesie Ruprecht stroked his long white beard. “Plato said that the very things mathematicians shape and draw, they treat only as images, but what they really seek is to apprehend those realities which can be seen only by the mind.”
Thyme snorted. “He sure sounds like the real Ruprecht!”
“I can assure you I am the real Ruprecht,” the real Ruprecht said.
Thyme furrowed her brow. “Why did Camino make a Ruprecht onesie?”
Mint cleared her throat.
Camino’s face flushed red and it wasn’t from the glow of the firelight. “I simply wanted to tell him my problems from time to time,” she said, looking down at her feet.
“That’s all well and good,” Mint said, “but there are more pressing matters at hand.”
The real Ruprecht quirked one eyebrow. “Like what?”
“Like murder, Grandfather,” she said. “Chris called me just as I was about to leave and told me about Henry Vanderbilt’s murder.”
We all nodded. “Camino has just filled us in,” I said. “She thinks she’s the main suspect.”
“She is the main suspect,” Mint said.
Chapter 6
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“We had better get to the shop,” Thyme said. “I popped in there on the way here, and left a note on the door to say we would be opening late.”
I slapped my hand to my forehead. “The shop! I’d almost forgotten about it.” I looked at the time on my phone. “Oh goodness. We are late.”
“We had escaped onesies and murder suspects on our minds,” Alder pointed out.
“Would you like the day off, Camino?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “No, working will take my mind off stuff.”
Mint patted Camino on her back. “Are you sure? I could stand in for you?”
“No, it will be a good distraction.”
We all walked to the front of the shop, followed by the two Ruprechts. “Oh dear,” Ruprecht said, just as his front door swung open. I could swear he hadn’t reached it—maybe it was the wind.
Standing on the doorstep were the two detectives, Detective Sam Barrett and Detective Chris Bowes. Chris was clearly embarrassed.
Barrett stepped forward. “Ms Camino Abre, we would like you to accompany us to the station. We would like you to help us with our inquiries.”
Camino turned white. “Of course,” she said in a shaky voice.
Detective Barrett looked from one Ruprecht to the other. “I didn’t know you had a twin,” he said to one of the Ruprechts.
“That’s right,” the real Ruprecht said. “My brother doesn’t often come to town to visit me.”
Barrett nodded to the onesie Ruprecht. “Pleased to meet you. What’s your name?”
“Ruprecht,” he said.
“Ruprecht?” the detective repeated, narrowing his eyes.
The real Ruprecht stepped forward. “Yes, our mother had been expecting one child and was surprised when she had twins. She had only picked the one name, Ruprecht, so she called me ‘Ruprecht Maximilian Llewellyn,’ and she called my twin brother here, ‘Cedric Ruprecht Forsyth.’ My brother prefers to be known by his middle name.”
The onesie Ruprecht smiled and nodded.
The detective scratched his head and turned away. He marched Camino to the waiting police vehicle with Chris trailing behind, shooting an apologetic look over his shoulder.
When they had driven off, I turned to the real Ruprecht. “What are we going to do now?” I wailed.
Alder put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t you worry. I’ll do some investigating and will soon have Camino off the hook. I’ll go and see what I can find out. Why don’t you go to the shop and go about things as normal?”
“As normal?” I repeated. “How can we go about things as normal? What if they arrest Camino?”
Alder shook his head. “They don’t have enough evidence to arrest her. It’s all circumstantial; she just happened to be in the vicinity at the time.”
I planted my palm on my forehead. “I’ve left my handbag in Ruprecht’s apartment,” I said. We said goodbye to Mint and Thyme, and then Alder, Marina, the Ruprechts and I went back into Ruprecht’s apartment. As I picked up my handbag, I glanced at the television. The volume was off. “That’s Kayleen!” I said in horror. “She’s being interviewed outside Camino’s house.”
The real Ruprecht leapt for the remote and turned up the volume.
“I’ve always thought there was something suspicious about that woman,” Kayleen said with a big smile. “I deliver her mail and I’m sure she is money laundering. I’ve never had enough information to go to the police, of course.” She smiled, and nodded slowly.
“And so, you wouldn’t say the suspect is an upstanding citizen?”
Kayleen nearly choked. “No! I’ve always thought she was running a brothel. I’m sure Camino and that woman who lives next door to her, Amelia Spelled, are brothel owners.”
“Brothel owners!” I shrieked. “Why, that…”
“Hush,” Ruprecht said. “Let’s see what else she says.”
Part of me didn’t want to hear what else she said.
“And they’re witches,” Kayleen continued. “They buy products from shops with names like Discount Wizards Suppliers and SandWitch Online and places like that. I’m certain they are devil worshippers.”
“Devil worshippers?” the journalist asked in doubtful tones.
Kayleen nodded vigorously. “Yes! Camino Abre and Amelia Spelled are devil worshipping brothel owners.”
My face grew hotter and hotter, as my breath came in shorter and shorter bursts. I don’t think I had ever been so angry in all my life. “Can we sue her?” I said through gritted teeth.
“Maybe Camino could turn her into a toad,” Marina said with a laugh.
I rounded on her. “It’s not funny! Did you hear what she said?”
Marina held up one hand, palm outwards. “It’s so ridiculous that no one would believe her. I’m sure people think she’s quite mad. It’s nothing to worry about Amelia, seriously.”
“Marina is right,” Alder said in soothing tones. “I might have to have a word with her.”
The real Ruprecht had already turned off the TV, I assume in an attempt to placate me.
I sighed. “I suppose I had better get to the shop and open up.”
When we arrived at my usual parking spot at the shop, I was horrified to see a man with his head in my garbage bin. “Hey you!” I called out.
The man looked startled, grabbed a bag of rubbish, and sprinted down the road. Thyme ran out to greet me. “There was a journalist going through your garbage!” she said in disgust.
“How do you know he’s a journalist?” I asked her.
“I’ve seen him on TV,” she said. “He’s from one of the Sydney television stations.”
I scratched my head. “You’ve got to be kidding! This can’t be good.”
I walked in the shop and peeked out the front window. I expected to see a group of journalists standing outside the shop window, but to my relie
f, nobody was in sight.
“I’ll put the cakes out, and you can open the front door if you like,” Thyme said.
I hurried to the door and flipped the sign to Open. Mint turned on the coffee machine. “This takes a good five minutes to heat up,” she muttered to herself.
“Thanks so much for helping, Mint,” I said.
“You’re most welcome. I haven’t heard from Chris. I hope Detective Barrett doesn’t arrest Camino.”
“You and me both,” I said. “It’s such a worry.” I hurried to the back room to fill the cake trays. The first customer was a man who spent a lot of time looking at the cakes. I wondered if he was a journalist. I hadn’t seen him around town before. “Are you looking for anything in particular?” I asked him.
He appeared taken aback. “Um, I’m not sure. I might have one of those.” He pointed to a crème brûlée cupcake.
As I packaged the cake for him, he asked, “Do you always have an unusual event for Halloween in this town?”
I was puzzled. “No more so than most towns,” I said. “There’s the Halloween fair, and this year we have the Halloween Ball. What do you mean?”
“I mean what’s going on at that wine cellar at the end of this road, the one in a building that’s shaped like a castle.”
Thyme walked over. “I didn’t know they were having a Halloween event?”
“Yes, it seems to be some sort of theatre,” he said. “A princess has taken over and says it’s her castle. She is refusing to let anyone buy any wine. She says it’s bad for the liver.”
Thyme and I exchanged glances. I hoped this wasn’t something to do with the onesies. It certainly sounded as though it was, given that Camino had made a princess onesie only weeks earlier.
The journalist looked at Mint. “I might have a large, lactose-free, skinny cappuccino. Do I pay for both the cake and the latte here at the counter?”
I nodded, and he swiped his card. “You’re not the usual lady who works here, are you?” he asked Mint.
“No, I’m filling in for her,” she said. “And the machine will take another minute or so to heat up, if you don’t mind waiting.”
“Sure. Have the police arrested the usual lady who works here?”
I put my hands on my hips. So I was right. He was a journalist, after all.
“You’re a journalist here under false pretences,” Thyme said.
“Journalists need coffee and cake,” he said. “We’re regular people who need to eat. I’m not here under false pretences. I’m simply a customer.”
“And that’s fine, but we won’t answer any questions,” I told him.
“You have to give your story to one of us, and I’m one of the nicest journalists around.” He winked at me. “Some of them aren’t so nice, and their tactics are rather underhand.” He pointed out the window.
To my horror, several people were walking towards the shop, and one had a big television camera on his shoulder.
The man handed me his card. “If you do decide to give an interview, please consider me first.”
The door opened and people streamed in. “You always get in first, Andy,” a woman said to the man who had bought the cupcake and the latte.
He shrugged and smirked. “I’m just waiting for my coffee.”
“You’re welcome to buy cakes and coffee, but I’m not going to make a comment,” I said loudly. My voice echoed around the shop.
I opened my mouth to protest, but a scream forestalled me. I ran outside and gasped.
Chapter 7
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A large black and white goat was jumping up and down on a car parked directly outside my shop. Andy pushed past me and ran to the car. “My car! My car!” he yelled. “There’s a goat jumping up and down on top of the roof.”
I shrugged. “I can see that. Anyway, it’s nothing to do with me. It must be a wild goat.”
“Are there any wild goats in this town?” he yelled.
“There are now,” I said.
Another goat appeared and looked at his shoes. “My good leather shoes!” he exclaimed. “That goat’s trying to chew on them.”
“Nothing to do with me,” I said again. I turned to walk back into my shop, but the other journalists ran out. A herd of goats at once surrounded them. I locked the door and flipped the sign to Closed.
“What’s going on out there?” Thyme asked me.
“It’s an outbreak of goats,” I said. “Do you think Andy realises that one has horns?”
“He does now,” Mint said with a laugh. I looked out the window to see the goat chasing Andy down the street. “You do realise those goats are Camino’s goat onesies,” Mint continued.
I clapped my hand over my mouth. “Oh no! What are we going to do now?”
The two Ruprechts manifested in the shop. “How did you get in here?” I asked them.
“Through the door at the back of this shop,” they said in unison. One of them added, “Amelia, it’s imperative you find a spell to reverse those onesies to their original condition.”
I rubbed my hand over my forehead. “I don’t have a clue how I can do that. I did google it, but I couldn’t find a spell to return onesies to their original condition.”
“Aha,” Thyme said. “Now is not the time for sarcasm. It’s going to get worse, you realise. We don’t know exactly which onesies have escaped, and what if one of the redback spider onesies escaped?”
I shuddered. “I didn’t think of that. Anyway, Alder’s working on the spell reversal.”
Mint’s phone rang. She looked at the screen, turned white, and said, “I have to take this.” She ran to the back of the shop.
One of the Ruprechts walked over to the front window. “It appears there is an outbreak of goats,” he said.
“They’re onesie goats,” I told him.
He scratched his head. “I had no idea Camino made so many goat onesies.” He looked the other Ruprecht up and down. “In fact, I had no idea Camino made such a variety of onesies.”
“Why is the shop shut?” the other Ruprecht asked.
“Because all those people out there being harassed by the goats are journalists,” I told him. “They thought they could get an interview with Camino.”
Both Ruprechts tut-tutted. “That’s no good,” they both said.
Mint burst into the room. “That was Chris,” she said, “I’m not supposed to tell anyone. I mean, I suppose he wanted me to tell you guys, but you can’t tell anyone.”
I looked at her flushed face with alarm. “What is it, Mint? What’s wrong?”
“It’s not good, but it doesn’t implicate Camino in any way,” she said. “He told me that surgical scissors were used as the weapon and that there was a note found in the victim’s wallet. It said, I told you not to come home.”
“Well, that’s good it is, isn’t it?” I asked her. “Surely they can get DNA off the note, or maybe analyse the handwriting.”
Mint shook her head. “It was a computer printout not hand written, and Chris has no doubt the person used gloves.”
“But surely it was a spur of the moment decision to murder Henry Vanderbilt,” I said. “I suppose everyone knew he was in Australia at the time at Byron Bay, but not many people would have known he would come to Bayberry Creek to visit his old nanny.”
“You have a point,” one of the Ruprechts said. “If it was someone close to him, then they would know he was visiting the hospital, but if it wasn’t someone close to him then…” His voice trailed away.
“It seems strange to me that he was murdered in a hospital,” I said. “I mean, there would be a lot of witnesses in th
e hospital, and if Camino hadn’t happened to be in the bathroom at the time, then she would have come face-to-face with the murderer.”
“But she wouldn’t have known the person was a murderer,” Thyme said, “because the person wouldn’t actually murder anyone in front of Camino. Maybe, it was a nurse or a doctor, then that would explain why Henry was murdered in a hospital.”
One of the Ruprechts tapped his chin. “A nurse or a doctor—yes, that does make sense. Yet surely if it was a nurse or a doctor, then they would have taken care to murder the victim away from the hospital so as not to throw suspicion on themselves.”
“And maybe a nurse or a doctor does have a grudge against Henry Vanderbilt and the murderer knew that, and that’s precisely why the murderer did the deed in the hospital,” I said.
Thyme groaned. “Now my head is spinning.”
“It’s probably lack of carbs.” I handed her a triple chocolate cupcake. She wasted no time popping it in her mouth.
“We have to ascertain exactly who had a grudge against the victim,” Mint said. “Maybe we could google it.”
I agreed. “That’s a good idea. We’ll read all those entertainment articles over the years.”
“But what about the note, I told you not come home,” Thyme said.
“There are two possibilities,” one of the Ruprechts said. “Either that was genuine and someone did tell Henry Vanderbilt not come home—and, of course, the language reveals that it was someone from Bayberry Creek who wrote that note—but the other possibility is that someone who was not from Bayberry Creek wrote the note and they wrote it to throw suspicion off themselves.”
I threw up both hands to the ceiling. “Then what do we do now?” I asked. “How do we find out who the suspects are, apart from googling them, that is?”
I looked up to see someone banging on the front door. It took me a moment to realise it was Alder. I opened the door, and he stepped in, looking as dashing as ever. “Goats?” he said. “Onesies? Still two Ruprechts?”