“Chief Griffin!” Iris exclaimed as soon as she saw Chase. “What are you doing here?”
“Hello, ladies,” Chase announced to the room. “I’m afraid that with Vanessa Langdon’s death I’m going to have to interview all of you.”
“You don’t think she was murdered, do you?” Maddie asked, her hands flying to her mouth, but Chase shook his head.
“It’s way too early to know anything for certain at this point. This is just routine, nothing to worry about. Alice, is there somewhere in here where I can take everyone’s statements in private?”
“Sure, of course. There’s the back room. It’s small, and fairly messy, but it’s private,” I said, motioning to the door behind the counter. Chase nodded.
“I’ll start with you,” he said, motioning for Maddie to follow him. Her eyes widened, and she mutely went after Chase to the back room while I made my way to the sink and got Polly a glass of water. Her eyes were red and tears streamed down her face.
“I can’t believe it,” she whispered. “Who would do this to Ness?”
“We don’t know it’s murder yet,” I soothed. “Chase is just here as a routine procedure.”
Still, despite his words to calm everyone down, the tension level in the room had definitely risen. Maddie came back out about five minutes later, said a couple of words to Cat, and then left.
One by one, Chase called people into the back room, and as soon as they finished their interview with Chase they left, their faces all uniformly ashen and serious.
Finally, the only people left in the shop were Cat, Chase and I. Chase came out from the back and sat down on one of the couches. He must have noticed the expression on my and Cat’s faces, however, because he immediately jumped back up and leaned on the back counter instead.
“Sorry. In my line of work it’s not exactly a rare thing to see a dead body.”
“Yeah. I think I’m going to have to throw out that couch,” I said, motioning with my head to where Vanessa’s body lay.
“Not until forensics is done with it,” Chase said.
“So you do think it was murder,” Cat said. “I knew it.”
“The EMT told me the same thing,” I admitted.
Chase nodded. “Obviously, don’t spread that news around. But yes, Vanessa Langdon was murdered, most likely by cyanide poisoning.”
Cat swore. “This is so not going to be good for business. I mean, I’m sad she’s dead and all, but I really hope word doesn’t get out about this.”
“If it helps, the poison would have been in the coffee and not the cupcakes,” I offered up with a shrug.
“Exactly, that’s what I’m thinking. Three people remembered seeing Vanessa drinking from her coffee cup in the minutes before she died. However, no one can tell me for certain when the last time they saw her drink from it before that was.”
“Let me see,” I thought, racking my brain trying to remember the timeline. “She ate her cupcake first, then had some coffee after that. That had to be a good half hour before she died. I don’t really remember her drinking all that much afterwards.”
“Was there ever an opportunity for someone to slip something into her drink without anyone else noticing?” Chase asked.
I nodded. “Sure. It ended up being quite a lively meeting. We played a couple of games as well where there would have been lots of opportunities. One involved everyone closing their eyes while swapping cards to play guess-the-character, then when we played charades there was a lot of confusion. Someone could have easily slipped something into her coffee then.”
As I said the words the impact of what I was saying dawned on me, and my hand flew to my mouth. “Oh my God. That means someone at the book club killed Vanessa!”
Cat’s eyes widened as the realization hit her as well. “Wow, one of those people is a murderer?”
“Did any one of them stick out to you as not getting along with Vanessa?” Chase asked.
“Well, no,” I said slowly. “There was one woman who came with her, Polly. She was extremely broken up about it when it all happened. But there was no one who seemed to not get along with Vanessa. Certainly, no one acted like they wanted to kill her.”
“Yes, Polly Brooke. Works as a kindergarten teacher at the local elementary school.”
“She mentioned she worked at the school, yeah.”
“All right. Well, I’m going to go notify the family. If you think of anything else, please, let me know. I’ve called for a crime scene investigation team to come up from Portland, they should be here soon, if you wouldn’t mind letting them in when they get here. In the meantime, you know the drill. Don’t touch anything.”
“We won’t,” Cat and I promised in unison.
Chase made his way toward the door, then paused.
“And do not try to investigate this murder yourself.”
“We won’t!” I promised.
Chase just couldn’t see the fingers I had crossed behind my back.
Chapter 3
“So I assume we’re obviously going to ignore Chase and find the killer ourselves,” Cat said as soon as Chase closed the front door behind him.
“Of course,” I replied. “After all, whoever did this used coffee from your shop. And you’re right, until the killer is found, your reputation is probably going to take a bit of a hit. If we investigate this ourselves, then the chances of finding the killer faster go up.”
“Exactly,” Cat agreed. Just then, Aunt Francine’s ghost appeared again.
“What on Earth happened? I came to see how things were going about half an hour ago and there was a body covered in a sheet lying on the couch. I mean, I will admit I was a little bit jealous that you had such a good turnout to your first book club, but I didn’t expect you to bore anyone to death.”
“This woman was murdered,” Cat said. “Now come on, let’s lock up and go upstairs, I don’t want to have to hang out next to this body for any longer than is truly necessary.”
“Agreed.”
“Wait, murdered?” Francine exclaimed. “Wow, I definitely didn’t expect that.”
“If it helps, neither did we,” I muttered.
Five minutes later we were all upstairs, Cat sitting on one of the stools at the kitchen island while I leaned against the counter, waiting for some leftover homemade macaroni and cheese to heat up in the microwave for our dinner.
“Did you know Vanessa before tonight?” I asked Cat, who scrunched up her face.
“I think so. I mean, not well, but I’m pretty sure she’s lived here her whole life, because I remember seeing her a few times when we were in high school. I’d never spoken to her or anything, though. She was a few years younger than me, at least.”
“We need to find Polly and talk to her. She knew Vanessa better than anyone.”
“Absolutely. The thing is, though, I don’t know who would have wanted Vanessa dead. I mean, I don’t know that anyone there other than Polly actually knew her.”
“We really need to delve deeper into Vanessa’s life and find out about what she did,” I agreed. “As it stands, it seems like the only person who actually knew Vanessa was Polly, and I can’t imagine her killing the woman. She was so broken up about it.”
“True, though she might have been broken up over the fact that she actually killed someone,” Cat pointed out.
Before I had a chance to respond, the doorbell’s chime filled the room.
“I guess the crime scene people are here. Can you put the macaroni in bowls for me when it’s done heating?” I called out to Cat as I made my way toward the stairs leading back down to the bookshop to let them in.
Ten minutes later I was back upstairs, having given the crime scene people instructions on how to lock up after themselves when they were done, with Cat and I happily eating our macaroni and cheese while Francine’s ghost hovered nearby.
“Are the two of you really going to try and solve another murder?” she asked.
“Of course we are. I mean, thi
s is Cat’s reputation on the line,” I announced.
“Still, with The Others out there, and what happened last time, are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“That was different,” Cat said. “That one involved a guy who liked to sneak around and stop crimes, so it naturally involved a lot of sneaking around at night. This was the murder of a very normal woman who lived a normal life. We’ll be able to do all of our investigating during the day, and in places where there will be tons of people.”
“Right,” Francine replied. “So the fact that the two of you were almost killed by The Others only a couple of weeks ago has had no real effect on you.”
“It’ll be fine,” I said, hoping I sounded a bit more confident than I felt. “Besides, I’m not going to spend my entire life cooped up in here trying to avoid them. That’s not living, either.”
“Exactly. What she said,” Cat replied.
“Fine,” Francine huffed. “But let me tell you, the life of a ghost isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, either. You have no idea what I’d give to taste some of that macaroni right now, for example.”
“Sorry,” I muttered as I shoved another spoonful into my mouth.
“No, no. Don’t apologize. You may as well enjoy it. But living is a far better fate than not living.”
“I thought you were on our side, anyway,” Cat said. “We’re planning on defeating The Others for good.”
“Yes, I know. I’m simply not sure this is the right time to do it.”
“Then when?” I asked. “I mean, they’re coming after us now. We might as well get it over and done with.”
Aunt Francine sighed. “I know. But your grandmother doesn’t think it’s time yet.”
“That’s because she’s like a hundred years old,” Cat muttered. “Plus, she spends all her time in Brixton Road, where The Others can’t get to her.”
Brixton Road was this weird, magical world created by all of the paranormals in Sapphire Village, where they could be magical without fear of humans seeing them. Most of our family lived there full-time now, rather than living in Sapphire Village. Cat and I were the only ones who lived in the human world permanently.
“Yes, well. I’ll leave the two of you to it. Please, if you’re going to look into that murder, be careful.”
“We will,” I nodded. “Don’t worry.”
Aunt Francine floated off, probably to Brixton Road, and Cat turned to face me. “All right. So what’s the plan?”
The next day, while Cat had to be up early to get things ready at the bakery, I didn’t have to open the bookshop until 10, so I woke up at eight, made breakfast for myself and for Muffin, and made my way downstairs to see what kind of mess the crime scene unit had made. Honestly, it wasn’t too bad. There was fingerprint dust everywhere, and as Chase had promised the couch where Vanessa had died was gone, but apart from that–and a couple of books scattered here and there–there were no real signs that they had spent half the night investigating.
A quick spell cleared up the fingerprint powder, and a second spell moved the chairs back around the shop where they had been before the book club, and just like that it was impossible to tell that anything had changed from after I’d closed up the previous afternoon.
I really hoped the death wouldn’t stop people from coming by to pick up books.
Unfortunately for Cat and me, we didn’t have any way to speak to anyone that morning. We knew Michelle worked at Pickles’ Pizza and had planned on going there for dinner to try and get some information out of her, but it wouldn’t open until almost noon. And Polly and Vicky, who worked at the elementary school, weren’t going to have any real time off until after 2:30 that afternoon.
As for Olivia and Iris, I had no idea where I was possibly going to find them. I knew Cat could talk to Maddie, but I was pretty sure she wouldn’t know anything that could help us, either. I definitely couldn’t see the super bubby and friendly Maddie murdering anyone, that was for sure.
What I hadn’t expected was for customers to be lining up in front of the door before I had even opened for the day. By quarter to ten there were about three people peering in through the front windows of the shop. Five minutes later, those three people had turned to ten, and I began to wonder what on Earth I was in for that day. Feeling just a little bit uncomfortable with everyone staring at me through the window before we opened, I made my way to the back room, where I could hide away until it was time to open and face whatever frenzied mob I was going to be dealing with that morning.
Surely, news of the murder couldn’t have traveled around town that fast?
“It appears your bookshop has suddenly become quite popular,” I heard a high English accent say from somewhere in the room. “What, may I ask, has caused this rather surprising change in fortune?”
“It shouldn’t be a surprise that the shop is popular,” I grumbled as Archibald made an appearance. The bitter ghost who had lived in this shop for, well, I wasn’t really sure, but a long time, made himself visible once more. Dressed in a black sweater over a white shirt with a huge collar, he looked the quintessential nineteenth century romantic English poet, only a little bit more transparent than the living.
“Oh, but it is. You’re constantly featuring books by authors that simply bore me. What kind of name is Stieg Larsson anyway? It’s so foreign. Everyone knows the English are the best writers.”
I rolled my eyes. “Is that why Archibald whatever-your-last-name-is is such a household name?”
“No!” he replied indignantly. “That’s because that thief Byron stole my works and passed it off as his own.”
“Ah,” I said, a smile playing on my lips. I was very aware of the feud between Byron and Archibald that had spanned centuries. On one side, at least. As far as I was aware, Byron had crossed over to the other side and no longer remained on Earth as a ghost.
“Did you have your little women’s gossip party here last night?”
“You mean that party where we read the book of one of your contemporaries who’s still well-known enough to sell millions of copies a year, hundreds of years after her death? Yes, we did.”
Ok, so I was goading Archibald a little bit. But he had some rather outdated ideas about women and their roles, and I was definitely not going to sit here and have my gender be insulted while he sulked about his own failed career as a writer.
“Oh please. Jane was a hag. You know, I saw her once, up in Chawton. I knew she wrote, although at the time I had no idea she was the author of Pride and Prejudice. She was simply published under the name A Lady. She used to waste her time teaching poor children in the town how to read and write.”
“Yeah, what an awful human being, right?” I said, rolling my eyes.
“Well, I do think you should have picked a rather worthier author’s work to study for your first book club, even if it wasn’t mine. If you had to go with a female author, Ms. Christie would have been a far better choice.”
Agatha Christie seemed to so far be the only exception to Archibald’s idea that women shouldn’t write. He was very much a fan of the mystery author’s works.
“I would have said maybe next time, since Death on the Nile would have been a great book club choice, but I don’t think there’s going to be a next time,” I sighed.
“What? Why on Earth not?”
“Well, someone was murdered at last night’s book club.”
“Don’t sell me a dog!” Archibald cried.
“What? Who said anything about a dog?”
“It’s an expression. You’re lying to me.”
“Of course I’m not lying to you. A woman was poisoned at the book club.”
Archibald let out a groan. “My goodness. Hundreds of years of boredom, and finally something interesting takes place around here, and I miss it!”
“You do realize that means someone was murdered?”
“My dear, do you know how many people have been murdered on this Earth since my own death? It’s not exactly a shockin
g thing to me anymore. Besides, in death, I’m absolutely lovely, I’m sure everyone else is as well.”
“If this is you being lovely it’s no wonder you were exiled from England,” I muttered under my breath. “I have to go, Archibald. It’s time to open up the store. I’ll come back later and find you an audiobook to listen to.”
With that, I made my way toward the front and wondered what on Earth I was going to get myself into today.
Chapter 4
At least fifteen people were waiting outside the store when I opened up. Hey, if I was lucky I would make a few new customers today. However, I had a feeling these people were far less interested in books than they were in gossip.
And as soon as I opened the door to let the growing crowd inside, I knew I was right.
“Is this where it happened?” the first woman asked me, practically grabbing me by the shirt in her desperate need to know more.
“The tragic death of a young woman? Yes, that did happen here last night,” I said.
Ok, I was being a little bit short, but I found people who salivated over the death of a poor young woman to be kind of gross. After all, the woman wasn’t even in the ground yet; coming to the place where she died and trying to get all the gossip possible seemed in pretty bad taste to me.
“Were you here?” the woman asked in a hushed whisper.
“I was, yes.”
“Do you know what happened to her?”
“No, I don’t. I know she had a medical emergency, and she passed away shortly afterwards.”
Ok, that was a lie. I was well aware Vanessa had been murdered, but I didn’t want to give this woman any more information than I absolutely had to.
“Was it horrid?”
“It was,” I said curtly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to help other customers,” I said, with an emphasis on the last word. The woman huffed her annoyance but didn’t leave. Instead, she began walking around almost on her tip-toes, like she was afraid of running into Vanessa’s ghost or something.
Pride and Premeditation: A Cozy Mystery (Magical Bookshop Mystery Book 5) Page 2