by Tonya Kappes
Cindy Sams finally opened her mouth. “It’s worth a shot to look.”
“I did take some photos of the town today. About what time was that?” Webster asked Paris.
“It was after we’d left the tea store.” Gerald would’ve been so offended by Paris calling it a store instead of a shop. “I went straight over to the charming shop because I’d met that lady in there after…” She clapped her hands together. “Those two old women asked me about a ghost or something.”
“The old women dressed in housecoats?” Webster laughed. “I took a lot of photos of them. Very entertaining.”
“There are a lot of weirdos around here.” Cindy still had a nasty look on her face.
“I think it’s kinda charming.” Tammy instantly warmed my heart. “If the Spangled is here, I don’t blame it. It’s gorgeous here. Safe.”
“Safe?” Adam came into view. “Safe is being in a naturally formed habitat I will have made for the bird at the Prebble Exotic Zoo.”
“I’ve about had enough of this zoo crap.” Cindy stood up and huffed away.
“What’s wrong with her?” Webster asked Adam.
“She seems to have a beef with you,” Paris joked.
“She does.” Adam sat down in Cindy’s place. He clasped his hand in front of him and leaned his elbows on his thighs. He looked into the fire. “I’m her ex-husband.”
A collective gasp came from the group and from me.
Chapter Twelve
After hearing the big bombshell that the victim was the ex of Cindy Sams, the president of the society, I’d woken Oscar up from his deep sleep.
“June, I’m glad you discovered this, but I’ll check it out tomorrow.” He rolled over again and fell right back to sleep.
I knew he wasn’t worried Cindy or any of the others would slip out of town, because there were so many teenagers that’d let us know and stop them.
I spent the rest of the night waiting for the sun to rise so I could head down the hill to visit Ophelia Biblio, Colton’s wife.
They were newlyweds and the most adorable couple.
Ophelia owned Ever After Books. She was a witch and would have all the books I’d need to research Cindy Sams and Adam Vedder along with their history.
With Oscar still fast asleep, I quickly got ready for the day since I knew I wouldn’t be coming home anytime soon. I opted to wear a jean short jumpsuit with a hot pink belt and a pair of hot pink flats. It would be a warm day, and I needed to be able to move about so I could find out as much about these Audubon Society members as I could.
“Pst. June!” I heard someone call my name when I walked past the Gathering Rock. Petunia walked out from behind it.
“Petunia, what’s wrong?” I immediately thought of Orin when I didn’t see him strapped on her back, but when I noticed her hair was out of the updo and freely flowing as if it’d been brushed, I knew it had to do with the Spangled. “Where’s the bird?”
“I have no idea.” Her eyes shifted left and right. “After I took all of those people back to the Treesort, he flew out and hasn’t come back.”
“Have you been out here all night?” I asked and noticed the black circles under her eyes.
“Have you been up all night?” she snapped back. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I didn’t get to talk to Adam before he flew off. I never got to be alone with him.”
She didn’t have to tell me she meant his bird soul. The thing with some mortals was that if some of them had unfinished business, their souls would come back in animals they loved. This was why Adam had come back as the Spangled, which gave us more reason to look into his background with the bird.
“What am I going to do?” Petunia asked, flustered.
“I want you to go home and get some sleep. Or go to your shop and take it easy if you don’t want to go home.” It was solid advice since she wouldn’t to be any good to anyone with her mind all jumbled. “Go cuddle with your animals. I have some great leads.”
I decided not to tell her about Cindy being Adam’s ex-wife because she didn’t need more information put into her head. It was too crowded already.
She was a bit reluctant.
“I’m heading over to Ever After and going to check out all of them. If I find anything out that I don’t already know, I’ll come see you.” I gave her the crisscross over my heart.
“Fine.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I’ll walk with you.”
When we got to the bottom of the hill and stood on the sidewalk, there was a hint of color popping over the woods. The clinking of chains echoed from far off. When I turned to look, I could see the faint glow of Eloise’s lantern lighting the way down the main street past the Gathering Grove Tea Shoppe.
I headed straight across the street, while Petunia and Mr. Prince Charming took a right toward the pet shop. I shook my head. Mr. Prince Charming knew Petunia was about to do her morning ritual where she talked to all the animals, brushed them, gave the treats, and then fed them. He was included.
“Ever After Books.” I read the purple lettering on the khaki-colored canvas that hung over the book store. The sign wasn’t turned to open, but the lights were on.
I headed through the gate and up the steps. I knocked lightly on the door. I leaned over to look into the window so Ophelia could see it was me.
Ophelia was wearing a pair of jeans with a white tight-fitting sweater and black wedge sandals, which made her five-foot, five-inch frame appear to be a little taller. Her honey-blond hair tumbled down her back in beautiful loose curls. She didn’t look like a mortal would think a witch would look like. She smiled like a movie star.
“June, it’s early.” She looked at my hands. “Colton told me about what happened. I just put on some coffee, get in here.”
When I stepped in, I had to duck from the flying book.
“It’s early, and they are all getting their energy out before the day starts.” It was her way of warning me to keep an eye out or I’d lose one.
The books swirled, dipped, and dove throughout the colorful shop. The wings of the books resembled the petals on the daisies in the flowerbed outside of the shop. There was a lamppost at the beginning of each aisle. All the aisle were filled with books.
In each corner of the store were big comfy couches with large fluffy pillows and baskets of snuggly blankets in all sorts of bright colors. Her shop was always busy. Especially with little children.
“Come on back to my office and let’s chat.” I followed her to the back of the shop and through a door that opened up into Ophelia’s office space, which wasn’t much different than the actual shop. There were floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books and a long black desk in the middle of the room.
There was a coffee pot stand that let off steam from the freshly brewed pot. The comfort of the warm beans swirled around the room, making me feel a little more alive.
“What can I do for you?” she asked and handed me a mug to help myself.
“I wanted to know if you can help me do some research on the Audubon Society members. One of them is the killer, and I think I’d like to start with his ex-wife, Cindy Sams.” I lifted the mug to my lips to take a sip.
“Ex-wife?” she asked with some hesitation.
“Yeah. I had Madame Torres on around the campfire last night so she could hear different conversations, and she picked up one where Adam admitted to her being his ex.”
“That puts a whole different light on who did it and the motive.” Ophelia doctored up her coffee with creamer and sugar, then headed over to her desk where she sat down at the desktop computer. “Cindy Sams.” She typed on the keyboard.
Her eyes focused on the monitor. She kissed the tip of her finger and placed it on the screen. I was sure it was some sort of witch thing, but I didn’t ask. I just wanted the answers.
“According to my sources,” she said and turned the monitor toward me. “Cindy Sams has been divorced from Adam Vedders for over ten years. They met at an exotic zoo convention when she was there to see th
e Spangled Smoky Momoko.”
“That’s the bird,” I noted, making this the second most important motive for her. “First off, Adam was her ex, which most women want to kill their ex without a motive, but now we do have a tie to how they met. Over their love for the Spangled Smoky Momoko.”
“Over the past ten years, she’s spent her days working for different organizations to help endangered species. Which is really nice.” Ophelia rotated the monitor back to her.
“It might be nice, but she has still got a motive.” I took a few more sips of my coffee. “She glared at him since he showed up here. She even wanted to continue to move forward with the three a.m. search last night.”
“That’s terrible.” Ophelia shook her hands in the air like she was shrugging off anything left over from her search for Cindy. “Next name?”
“Webster Jones.” I continued to talk about him while she typed and did her finger-kissing thing. “He is a professional photographer who traveled the world. When he went on a bird expedition job, he had a hard time getting used to the slow, Zen art of bird-watching but ended up loving it by the end. That’s when he decided to quit his job at the National Geographic and go out on his own with the Audubon Society.”
“That’s a half-truth.” Ophelia looked over the top of the monitor at me with a raised brow. “According to my sources, Mr. Jones was at the National Geographic magazine until a few years ago when he was in Madagascar, where he had an altercation with another person on the expedition.”
She turned the monitor again.
“Is this Adam Vedder that was murdered?” Her fingernail tapped the photo on her screen. “Because my source said this man’s name is Adam Vedder.”
“It is.” Shock spread all over me. My mouth dried. I blinked a few times to make sure, but it was Adam. “He lied to me.”
“Who? Adam or Webster?” she asked.
“Webster.” I gnawed on my lip. “I was so sure Cindy did it.”
“She might’ve. But now there seems to be two people that have motive to kill him.” Her words made me wonder what the other two were hiding.
“Let’s see if any of the others have a background with our victim.” I eased back into the chair and took a long drink of the hot coffee. “Paris Rush.”
Ophelia continued to type.
“She’s the one who recognized the Spangled in the shop,” I reminded myself. “I’m not sure what would link her to Adam other than their love for the Spangled. She did tear up when Oscar told them about Adam’s death.”
“There’s not much about her. She has been a member of the Society for years. She’s twice divorced and does odd jobs to pay bills. She cleans houses and does some part-time waitressing.” While Ophelia continued to read about Paris, I drank my coffee. “She’s pretty low key. I don’t think she’s the killer.”
“She’s very enthusiastic. That’s about it.” I decided I wasn’t going to put her on the top of the list. “What about Tammy Harp?”
“T-A-M-M-Y.” Ophelia did her thing.
I got up and refilled my coffee mug. I took the carafe over to refill Ophelia’s mug.
“Not much here either.” She looked at me and made a frown face. “She’s been in retail most of her life. But she has Instagram. Let’s check that.”
Ophelia grabbed her phone and used her finger to bring up the Instagram app.
“Do you have Instagram?” she asked. I shook my head. “You should get it for the shop. It’s a great way to take photos, and you don’t have to worry about all those status updates. You do hashtags to get people to look at your photos. I like to use hashtag children books, hashtag book store, hashtag small town. I’ve gotten a lot of new customers who never knew about Whispering Falls.”
“Really?” My mind drifted to the different hashtags I could use for the shop. “I might have to give it a try.”
“Here.” She handed me her phone. “Here is Tammy Harp’s Instagram. Use your finger and scroll through her photos. See if anything jumps out. Give me your phone, and we can set you up under your shop name. They have business accounts.” She put her empty hand out in front of me.
I pulled my phone from my crossbody and gave it to her. Ophelia was great at connecting to customers. I was too, but I could probably get better and use more social media since it didn’t seem to be going away as I wished it would.
Tammy’s posts that were dated from the past couple of weeks were pictures of some of the Audubon Society meetings. There were a couple of Cindy Sams smiling. That was refreshing.
“It looks like she’s been really involved with the Society,” I said and continued to scroll down. “Let’s see what she did before the Society.”
There were some photos of her out to dinner and another where she was on the beach. A few more of her in a grocery store where she seemed to be a cashier. But nothing that screamed killer or that she was tied to Adam Vedder in any way.
“She looks like Paris. Not much out there.” Ophelia looked up from my phone. “I’m sorry, but I think you can dig deeper into why Adam had a hand in Webster’s firing at the magazine. I’d definitely look into Adam and Cindy’s divorce. There might be some money thing there.”
“Yeah.” I still didn’t have a good feeling about anyone in the group. “Thank you so much for your help.”
I sat Ophelia’s phone down on her desk in exchange for my phone.
“You’re all set up. I put a few of the photos from my phone I took in your shop on there to get you started. Now go take some good photos of your amazing potion bottles and hashtag those suckers.” She winked.
Chapter Thirteen
Eloise was long gone by the time Ophelia and I finished looking up the four members of the Audubon Society to see which one had the most motive to kill Adam Vedder. Though Cindy Sams was Adam’s ex-wife, and Adam Vedder caused Webster Jones to get fired from his job, were they really capable of killing?
My soul was still unsettled, and I guessed it would have to be something for Oscar to determine, if there was evidence from the crime scene that tied any of them to the murder.
The police station was down the street from Ever After Books and before Glorybee Pet Shop. It was still too early to go open the shop, plus I was itching to see if Oscar was at work and tell him what Ophelia and I had discovered.
I opened the door to find Oscar sitting at his desk. The inside of the station was a typical cop shop. The desks were in the front, and the cell was in the back.
“You never came to bed.” He looked up before he got up to kiss me. “Good morning.”
“Good morning.” I felt so at home in his arms. I wished I could stay there forever. “I have some news.”
“Of course you do.” He smiled and gestured for me to sit. “What is it?”
“Well, Cindy Sams was married to Adam Vedder, though they’ve been divorced for over ten years.” My words made him become suddenly wide-eyed. “Webster Jones told me he’d left his job at the National Geographic to pursue a more Zen bird photographer gig. When…” I sucked in a deeper breath because I really thought this was a much better motive to have killed Adam and possibly made Webster our killer. “Adam and he had some sort of argument and the magazine fired him.”
“Must’ve been some sort of argument.” Oscar leaned back and tented his fingertips in front of him as though he were contemplating what I’d told him.
“Paris and Tammy don’t appear to have any sort of motive, but it’s still good to look into them.” It was merely a suggestion.
“Thank you for letting me do my job.” He grinned but shifted his eyes over my shoulder when the door opened and the Karima sisters shuffled in.
“Mornin’, sheriff,” Constance Karima greeted Oscar but didn’t even pay me a bit of attention.
“Sheriff,” Patience was quick to repeat.
“Hi, ladies.” I made myself known.
“Mmhhhh,” Constance ho-hummed between her tight lips. “Adam Vedder died from an allergic reaction to bee stings
. The blow to the head was what knocked him out, but the bees got him after. He laid there a few minutes before he finally stopped breathing. The time of death would probably be a few minutes before midnight.”
Constance pinched Patience.
“Ouch.” Patience jumped.
“Give him the folder.” Constance jerked her finger toward Oscar.
“Folder.” Patience opened her housedress coat and pulled out the autopsy folder with Adam Vedder’s name on it.
“Now, these are preliminary.” She made sure she reminded him of how she did a quick autopsy before they really dug into him.
Oscar took the file and opened it. His eyes scanned down the first page, then he flipped it and continued until he got to the last page. He went back to the second page.
“It says here he had granola in his stomach.” He looked up at the sisters.
“What does that mean?” Constance asked.
“He was hungry. That’s what,” Patience joked, but no one found it funny. She looked down at her feet and fiddled with her fingers. “The stomach is my part. The entire digestive system including the esophagus. Is there something you see wrong?”
Poor Patience. She truly never got out of her sister’s shadow and always seemed so timid. If we didn’t have rule number one where we were forbidden to read other spiritualists, I’d have already given her a confidence potion.
“No beef stew?” I looked at her.
“Beef stew? Heavens no.” Patience shook her head. “There was no evidence in any of his blood work that even led to eating any sort of meat. He was a vegetarian.”
“Vegetarian?” I searched my mind for anything last night that told me he didn’t eat the stew. I clearly remembered him having a bowl in his hand. But was it stew?
Oscar closed up the file and got up.
“Thanks, sisters.” He nodded at them. “Let’s go, June. It’s time to get those statements.”
Oscar ran ahead of me on the path that ran between the police station and Glorybee, which led straight to the Full Moon Treesort.
“Are there any other vegetarians in the group?” he asked me over his shoulder as we were practically running.