by Tonya Kappes
“I think I’m going to have to let the time lapse and call in mortal services.” I could feel the defeat in his tone, and it pained me to my core. “I’ve kept them as long as I can. Colton and I have gone over everything we have, and nothing is a clear shot at who murdered him.”
This wasn’t unusual for a typical murder in a mortal world. Sometimes these types of murders took weeks if not months to solve, but in our magical world, we were pretty quick at being able to solve crimes. Not instantaneously but within a few hours or just a couple of days at the most.
“I’m sorry.” I didn’t want to tell him about my one last-ditch effort of going back to the Full Moon Treesort and follow up on my hunch to look into everyone’s room.
But I wasn’t about to let Oscar go down and give in without a good fight.
I gathered my things and ran my hand down Mr. Prince Charming.
“Come on,” I told my cat and put my phone in my pocket. “We have some snooping to do at the Full Moon.”
Chapter Seventeen
“It’s about time you got here.” Amethyst had met me at the door of the Full Moon Treesort. She pulled me inside of the resort. “I thought you were going to miss them leaving.”
“Oscar’s been by, huh?” I knew I would cut it close to the time limit Oscar had been under with keeping them in Whispering Falls. “I really wish our laws applied to mortal laws.”
“Don’t we all,” she reiterated.
We had a rule in Whispering Falls when it came to crime. Spiritualists were still allowed to run their shops and do their everyday activities, but they weren’t allowed to leave the village until the crime was solved. Unfortunately, the Audubon Society members were mortals, and their law stated they could only be held for questioning for twenty-four hours, which was technically until midnight, but that wasn’t going to happen. Especially since Webster had already consulted with a lawyer.
“Tell me what you dreamed.” I looked at my watch. It was already dusk, and soon all the shops would be closing, making the suspects leave since there was really nothing to do after hours.
“I was making granola. I hate granola. I never make the stuff.” She patted her belly. “Gives me gas. When I heard there were some bowls at the camp with granola, I knew it had to be related and made me sick with worry these guests were going to leave without you getting a good lead.” She stuck her hand out toward the outside. “You must go look in their rooms before they go. The only one that hasn’t left is Cindy. She must still be packing. But the others have gotten their things together and are meeting their bus at the Gathering Grove Tea Shoppe at nine p.m.”
“That certainly doesn’t give me a lot of time.” I looked at the tree lines to gauge the final resting place of dusk and where the night will fully come, which was generally around nine. “But you did say Cindy was still here?”
“I did.” She gave me the side-eye. “Did you…”
“I did. In fact, when I made the potion for her, it smelled of raisins and walnuts.” My words were met with a gasp from Amethyst’s gut.
“Granola.” Her eyes grew big. “You have to go there first.” She practically shoved me out of the resort and down the steps. “She’s in the big oak!”
“Of course she is.” It was my most favorite of all, and I’d put Mr. Sandman Sprinkles in there the other day. Did she not sleep that night either?
So I hurried along the way, looking back a few times to see if Mr. Prince Charming was following me. There was no sign of him, and Madame Torres was lighting up in my bag. I ran my hand over my wrist as I turned down the trail to make sure I had my protection. The Singing Nettles had long gone to sleep, and they were slumped over, snoring silently.
“I guess it’s just me and you guys,” I told the fireflies as they darted in and out of the trees, giving light to the path ahead of me and the guest tree house coming into vision.
I stood down at the steps to see if I could hear or see any movement.
“Go up and check,” I told the teens. They formed a line, circled the house, and came back forming an arrow, a sign for me to go up. “Cindy?” I called out just in case the teens were wrong and it wasn’t safe. “It’s me. June Heal.” I held the door open but did not go inside. “I’m here to make sure you don’t miss your bus back.”
I was met with the worst snoring you’d ever heard. Cindy Sams was sound asleep, catching up on some much-needed rest.
The lotion I’d made for her was on the nightstand. It looked as though she’d started packing her suitcase and decided to take a rest, and that was when the Mr. Sandman had probably kicked in.
“If the Mr. Sandman worked now, why didn’t it work at camp?” I questioned. “You couldn’t have killed him. No way.” I stood over her, watching her take deep breaths in and out.
I glanced around the room, looking for anything. Nothing appeared to be out of order. She was very tidy.
“But you knew Adam was allergic to bees,” I said to her as though she could hear me. “You were married to him, and if you had any ill feelings about him being here…” I shook my head and walked over to the desk to see what was there.
A stack of bird magazines and the guide she’d talked about earlier. Her binoculars sat upright on top of them. I picked them up and looked through them.
“Wow.” I jerked them down when the power was too overwhelming for my eyes. “Webster was right. These things could be good for nosy neighbors.”
When I went to put them down, I noticed some crumbs on the ground around the trashcan.
“What is that?” I picked up the can and looked in it. “Raisins, walnuts, oats,” I gasped when I realized the ingredients that was thrown away were granola.
I held the garbage can in my hand and walked over to her sleeping body.
I pulled my phone out with my free hand and called Oscar.
“Oscar, I think Cindy didn’t eat the stew at camp. She ate the granola with Adam because she knew he didn’t eat stew either. The two of them had a fight in his teepee. She was going in there to confront him about why he was there.” The theory was rolling off my tongue. “What if she pretended to let it slip that she’d seen the bird go down the bee trail knowing what Petunia had told the group. She was married to him, so she knew he was allergic, making the bees the perfect murder weapon. When he left the cane there, she cut him off at the path and knocked him in the head with his own cane. This gave her some insurance that the bees would find him. There was honey on the end of the cane, so she shook the hive next to his passed-out body, and that’s when the bees got him.”
“That was a mouthful. And why did you come to this conclusion?” he asked.
“Long story short, I made a potion for her earlier that smelled of raisins and walnuts. Amethyst had a dream about granola. We know two people ate granola at camp and not stew. One of those was the victim, and the other was the killer. I found granola in Cindy’s tree house.” It was the very shortened version.
“Why didn’t you say you found the granola?” he asked. “Where is it?”
“I’ve got it in the trashcan from her room in my hand. She’s napping, but I can get her up. I think the others have already gone to meet the bus at the Gathering Grove.” I looked over at her, wondering how this waking up thing was going to work out.
“I’ll meet you at the Gathering Grove.” Oscar clicked off the phone.
I hurried out of the tree house and down the steps with the trashcan in my hand. The lightning bugs were having a field day in front of me, darting in and out, making a nice little runway of lights for me.
“Amethyst!” I called out to her once I got to the clearing on the trail. “I need you to hold on to this trashcan for Oscar. But go wake up Cindy so she’ll know to go meet her group. And don’t do anything to the room. It’s a crime scene.” I held up my thumb to let her know that we had our killer.
Chapter Eighteen
There was really no time to spare to get to the Gathering Grove. Dusk was upon us, and I had to make sure the bus
was stopped and that Cindy didn’t beat me or Oscar there.
After I made it down the trail and to the far end of the main street, I could see there wasn’t a bus in front of the Gathering Grove, so I took a second to look into the Glorybee to see if Mr. Prince Charming was in there while Petunia did her evening closing ritual, which involved treats for all the animals. It was something Mr. Prince Charming never missed.
All of the Audubon Society members were inside of the pet store and gathered around the tree in the corner. The tall tree was actually a stunning sight to see.
Petunia was sweeping the floor. It was part of her closing rituals. She smiled at all the Audubon Society members, who ooh’d and aww’d over the live tree.
I could hear them talking about the vibrant green leaves and beautiful birds of all shapes and colors. Webster was busy taking photos, which told me Oscar had given it back to him.
They all laughed when the hedgehog and squirrel batted a nut between the two of them as they sat under the tree.
“See, we all can get along.” Cindy Sams looked at the group. “This trip might’ve not been successful as we’d hoped, but I think we’ve collectively come much closer as a group, and that can only make us stronger.”
It was almost time for Oscar to show up and for me to expose Cindy Sams for what she was.
A murderer!
Mr. Prince Charming ran over to them. He did figure eights around all of their ankles.
“I’m so sorry,” I apologized as I walked up behind them. “He must be saying goodbye.”
“Rowl!” Mr. Prince Charming bounced up on his hind legs and clawed at Tammy’s bag, ripping a hole in it.
“Oh my gosh,” I gasped and smacked my hands together. Mr. Prince Charming scurried up the tree and made it to the tallest branch. “I’m so sorry.”
Tammy grabbed her bag where he tore the hole and tried to piece it together.
“It’s fine.” She let him off easy.
“I have no idea what got into him.”
We all turned when we heard a door open. My heart raced when I thought it would be Oscar, but it quickly dropped when I noticed it was Gerald and Orin.
He had a pot in his hand. Petunia quickly ran over and grabbed it.
“I had to make you more stew before you left.” Petunia walked over to Cindy. “You loved it so much at the camp that I wanted to send you some home.”
“Oh, thank you.” Cindy took the pot. There was a grateful look in her eyes that led to them tearing up.
“Wait.” I stepped up. “You ate the stew the other night?”
“Yes.” She shook her head. “I had a couple maybe three helpings. It was so good. Petunia was sweet to give me her family recipe. Since I’m vegan, I wasn’t planning on eating any until Petunia told me it was vegan stew.”
“I wished I’d known. I didn’t eat any because I thought it was beef.” Tammy frowned.
“So you ate the stew, and you didn’t.” I looked between them. My eyes darted back and forth as I recalled the bowls and everyone eating them. “What about the granola?”
“Granola?” Cindy asked.
“The granola I found in your room.” My mind was a fog.
“That’s Tammy’s. She didn’t have a room, so she stayed with me.” The room started to spin around me as the words left Cindy’s mouth.
“Oh.” I blinked a few times to get the spinning to stop. Boy, was I wrong about Cindy killing Adam.
My phone chirped, and I pulled it out of my pocket, focusing on the screen. I was sure it was Oscar saying he was on his way, but it was goofy Instagram. My eyes were too foggy to even see what I was doing. I hit the button that I thought was going to make the app not work, but I opened it instead.
My nervous fingers hit a few buttons, not knowing what I was doing, and got me to the screen where it showed the items liked by the people I was following. Tammy’s popped up.
There were so many photos she liked. My finger slipped and accidentally opened one of the photos she liked, and my heart nearly stopped.
“June, are you okay?” The question someone asked me was a blur in my ear.
My eyes focused on the caption of the photo Tammy liked.
Throwback to the Kentucky Derby when I had bought this beautiful Spangled Smoky Momoko feathered hat from Tammy Harp’s beautiful shop in Louisville, Birds of a Feather. It cost me an arm and a leg but no one will ever be able to recreate my gorgeous hat.
Suddenly, I used my finger to click on Tammy’s profile. As if my thumb and eyes knew what I was looking for, my fingers scrolled her photos until it stopped on one. The one I’d seen when I was with Ophelia. The one with a man in it. I used my fingers to enlarge the photo because what I didn’t see before was clearly there now. Just a tiny bit of the man’s cane was barely in the corner of the photo. The gold beak of the carved bird head told me it was Adam Vedder, and the date of the post informed me how Tammy Harp knew Adam before she even joined the Audubon Society. Like two years before.
My mouth dried. I couldn’t even swallow. I slid my phone back into my pocket.
“June, are you okay?” Oscar, standing next to me, was talking to me, but it was the sound of the granola falling on the floor as it poured out of Tammy’s bag that brought me back to life.
“I’m perfect. In fact…” I clapped my hands and took a deep breath. “I’m more than perfect. Cindy Sams, it’s true that you were married to Adam Vedder and how he’d really changed from wanting to help endangered species to becoming the most popular exotic zoo with his accomplishments, putting your efforts and love on the back burner that led to your divorce. Though you couldn’t stand him, it was you that ended the relationship. Not making a suspect.”
I twirled around and pointed to Webster.
“You. You might have the most motive to have killed Adam Vedder.” I pointed directly at him. “He got you fired from your dream job, and though you might be Zen and happy now, those feelings still creep up. The thought of you having gotten that winning shot of the Spangled Smoky Momoko wasn’t going to slip through your hands again, especially when it came to Adam being your competitor here. But no. It wasn’t you.”
My finger slid over to Paris.
“You. Adam offered you money when he got here to help him find the bird with a little job offer at the exotic zoo to sweeten the deal. You were actually going to take him up on the offer, so there was no reason for you to kill him,” I said to her before I slowly turned to face the real killer.
Tammy Harp.
“You are new, the newest member of the Audubon Society, but not to Adam.” I took out my phone and got on the Instagram app. “In fact, you and Adam Vedder have been an item for the past couple of years.”
I wasn’t completely sure if what I was saying was correct, but my intuition told me I was spot on, and my words flowed to express it.
I held up the photo.
“That’s ridiculous,” she scoffed at me and rolled her eyes. “You can’t even see who is in that photo.”
“I can’t see his face, but I can see his cane, which he told me was made especially for him on a trip to Madagascar where he saw his first Spangled Smokey Momoko in memory of his winning.” I watched as her face contorted, giving me the full satisfaction that I had the real killer right in front of me. “I also know that it was your shop, Birds of a Feather, that sold the last known hat to a woman who wore it to the Kentucky Derby. Though I do not believe you want to poach them, I do believe that you have been working at Adam’s exotic zoo as the fundraiser coordinator.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Oscar get on his phone, and he was fact checking everything I was saying.
“You have access to a lot of wealthy people from the fancy boutique you owned, and those people would contribute to donating big bucks to an exotic zoo, especially if they had their names tied to it. I believe Oscar can fact check that the name on the photo of the woman with the Spangled feather hat on is the same person the Spangled Smoky Momoko e
xhibit at Adam’s zoo is named after for their biggest donation.” I knew I had her at this point.
“Just because people that I know donate money doesn’t mean I killed someone.” She laughed, mocking me.
“No, but Adam had you join the society to have you spy on what they were doing. He knew he couldn’t join because the two people who hate him most are members, and they didn’t know you. Making you a perfect spy for him, especially when he wanted to get his hand on the Spangled. When he showed up here because he couldn’t take the fact that you might see it, that sent you off the deep end, and minutes before he was murdered, you and he had a fight in the teepee where you sent him off on a wild goose chase down the path where Petunia had just mentioned was full of bees and their hives. You—” I jutted a finger at her. “You knew he was allergic to bees, and if you knocked him out long enough for the bees to swarm him, it would look like he had an allergic reaction, then death.”
“You’re a lunatic, and I’m going to sue you!” Tammy screamed at me. “If anyone had motive to kill him, it was her!” She pointed at Cindy.
“But it was the granola that tipped me off to you.” I pointed to the pile of grains on the floor. “You see, there were two bowls of granola eaten at the camp that night. Two people didn’t have the stew. Adam Vedder and you.” I smiled, knowing neither of them had fallen asleep from my Mr. Sandman Sprinkles.
Though I couldn’t tell them that, I knew I had her.
“He was going to make me look stupid in front of the big money donors, and I wasn’t going to let him do that.” Tammy started chirping like the Spangled Smoky Momoko that appeared in the hole of the tree behind her.
“Tammy Harp,” Oscar stated her name and took the cuffs off his police utility belt. “You have the right…” His words were a blur since everyone had forgotten about her when they focused on the magnificent bird who’d decided to make his big debut while his killer was brought to justice.
Adam Vedder was as much a fame seeker as the Spangled as he was in the living mortal form.