Be Careful What You Witch For (A Family Fortune Mystery)

by Dawn Eastman

  I poked my head in the door of the station and waved to Lisa. “Is Mac here?”

  She shook her head. “You just missed him. He didn’t say where he was going—I might be able to catch him if it’s urgent.” She reached for the telephone as I stepped in the door.

  “No! I mean, that’s okay. I’ll catch up with him later. How’s it going around here?”

  Lisa crossed her arms. “I can’t tell you anything about Diana or Dylan.”

  I regarded her carefully and switched tactics.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean the Rafe Godwin case. Just wondering how things are going for you. How are the kids?” I gestured toward the photo on her desk.

  She narrowed her eyes at me, but her kids were still young enough that she always had something she wanted to report about them.

  I patiently listened to the litany of funny things the two-year-old was trying to say and the clever things the four-year-old was able to do. I laughed in all the right places and admired the newest pictures. This seemed to melt the frostiness she had exhibited initially. I didn’t blame her for her cool reception. Over the summer she’d gotten an earful from Mac about gossiping and the need for discretion in her job as receptionist at the police station.

  She bit her lower lip and took a deep breath.

  “You might want to talk to Tom if you’re wondering about Diana. He’s down the street at Millie’s again.”

  Sighing inwardly, I realized I was glad I didn’t have Tom’s job. So much of it must consist of breaking up the same arguments and warning the same people to behave. Police work had turned out to be less exciting than I’d imagined. It consisted of piles of paperwork, dealing with rude and grumpy people, and the random injection of pure terror to mix it up.

  I nodded to Lisa and strolled casually out of the police station. As soon as the door swung shut behind me I power walked down the street and around the corner to Millie’s Book Nook. The last time I had found Tom there he was trying to avoid arresting Howard for vagrancy. Howard was Millie’s husband and that time he’d fallen asleep in her comfy reading area. She’d called the station and insisted they send someone over to deal with the “good-for-nothing bum.”

  This time there was no crowd gathered on the sidewalk outside. Millie didn’t seem to be shouting at Tom or Howard. This made me more anxious than a scene in front of the store.

  “I want a restraining order!” Millie said as I pulled the door shut against the wind.

  “I can’t do that, Mrs. Fessler.” Tom had his hands out and barely kept the frustration out of his voice. “Only a judge can do that and then only if there is a real threat.”

  “Of course there’s a real threat. She’s crazy and she’s after my husband!”

  Howard sat behind the counter, shoulders slumped, looking like he’d prefer to be anywhere else.

  “Hi, Mrs. Fessler,” I said.

  Millie wheeled around on her orthopedic shoes and took a deep breath, probably to start another tirade. Then her face broke into a smile.

  “Clytemnestra! I haven’t seen you since the summer. Why don’t you ever come to visit?”

  “I’ve been kind of busy with the festival, Mrs. Fessler.”

  “Well, you’re never too busy for a good book. You just take your time, dear, and pick out a good one.” She waved her arm toward the fiction section and spun around again to face Tom.

  Tom shot a pleading glance in my direction. Howard had perked up and his eyes sparked with excitement. He must have been expecting me to talk her down again.

  “Why do you need a restraining order?” I asked, ignoring her directions and walking over to stand near her.

  Millie put her hands on her hips. “That woman has been bothering my husband. She trespassed in my store and I want it stopped.”

  I looked to Tom for an explanation.

  “Mrs. Fessler thinks—”

  “No, I know.”

  “Mrs. Fessler is worried that Neila Whittle is ‘after’ Howard here,” Tom said.

  I knew Neila had a reputation as a witch and that the kids in town were half afraid and half fascinated by her, but was surprised that Millie had an issue with her.

  “Neila Whittle?” I said.

  “The witch that lives in the woods,” Millie said. “She was here yesterday and I want it stopped.”

  “Maybe she needed a book,” I said.

  Millie shook her head.

  “No, she waited for me to leave to bring my bank deposit down the street and then she slipped in here to talk to my Howard.” At this, she cast a look that combined adoration and menace in almost equal measure.

  “She didn’t—” Howard began.

  “Fortunately, I had forgotten the deposit slip on the counter and when I came back in to get it, I caught them in the act.”

  My stomach dropped at the thought of Neila and Howard in the act of anything together.

  “We were just talking. I haven’t seen her in years,” Howard said.

  Millie made a disgusted noise. “I don’t blame you, dear. I know she’s a witch and probably put a spell on you or something.” She turned toward Tom. “Is there a restraining order for spells? Because I want one of those, too.”

  “Mrs. Fessler, have you asked Howard what they were talking about?” I asked. “Maybe she really just wanted a book.”

  We all turned to Howard, who became pink while moisture beaded on his smooth head.

  “See? That’s what he does,” Millie said, pointing at Howard. “If that isn’t suspicious, I don’t know what is.”

  I had to admit Howard wasn’t helping himself with the blushing and sweating.

  “Mr. Fessler,” Tom said, “you don’t have to answer, but maybe you could tell us what you were talking about and reassure your wife it was all innocent. Then we can move on.”

  Howard took a deep breath. “We didn’t talk about anything. She came in, and said hello. I said it had been a long time, and asked how she was. She said she’d been better and then Millie burst in like a lunatic, accusing her of all sorts of things.”

  Millie sniffed.

  “Neila barely escaped while I held Millie back.” Howard’s voice rose as he described the scene.

  I felt a smile beginning and viciously suppressed it. The thought of ninety-one-year-old Millie brawling with Neila, also ancient, all over bald, pudgy Howard was actually kind of sweet.

  “You can’t get a restraining order against someone for entering a business if they haven’t ever threatened or harmed anyone.” I could tell Tom was trying to keep his voice even but the aggravation crept in.

  “Why do you think she came here after all this time?” I asked Howard.

  He glanced at Millie and shrugged.

  “She had her chance and she blew it.” Millie crossed her arms. “Now she’s after him again.”

  I raised an eyebrow at Tom. He lifted a shoulder and grimaced, clearly no closer to understanding the issue than I was.

  Howard blew out air. “We . . . courted a long, long time ago. It didn’t work out. Then much later”—he paused to cast a meaningful glare at Millie—“I met Millie. I can’t be held responsible for going steady with someone before I even met her.” He hooked a thumb in Millie’s direction and crossed his own arms.

  Tom shuffled his feet and looked uncomfortable. I covered my grin with a cough. The thought of eighty-year-old Howard going steady was about to cause a fit of giggles.

  “Maybe we should leave to let you two work this out,” I said.

  Tom and I backed out of the store and I flipped the sign to CLOSED before shutting the door behind us.

  “Wow, those two really keep you busy don’t they?”

  Tom nodded and smoothed his shirt even though it looked freshly pressed. “She kind of scares me,” he said.

  “I couldn’t tell,” I lie
d.

  “Have you heard anything more about Diana or Dylan?”

  He shook his head. “I shouldn’t be talking to you about this. I don’t really know anything for sure, but I think Mac is going to let Diana go. He let her stay at the station last night, mostly because she refused to leave, but he doesn’t believe her confession.”

  The tightness in my shoulders melted at this news. I knew Mac couldn’t have been fooled by her confession. It unfortunately made it look like Dylan’s own sister didn’t believe in his innocence, though. When I mentioned this to Tom he just nodded and sighed. I realized that Dylan’s arrest must have been hard on him as well. He and Dylan were always together when they were in school. He must have wanted to help him somehow. But once he was off the case, he had no more influence than the rest of us.

  We’d walked almost back to the station and I stopped to let him continue on his own. If Mac was considering letting Diana go, I didn’t want to interfere and get into a stubborn contest with him.

  I climbed into my car as my phone buzzed. A text from Seth read: Heading home—I’ll walk the dogs. I smiled and realized how glad I was to have him here in Crystal Haven.

  I had just put the Jeep in gear when someone knocked on my window. I jumped and the phone flew out of my hand.

  Mac was there and I rolled down the window.

  “You probably shouldn’t text even while sitting at the curb,” he said with a grin.

  “People don’t usually sneak up on me while I’m in my parked car,” I said.

  His smile faded. “I need your help at the station.”

  26

  “So, what do you need?” I had to quicken my pace to keep up with him. “I have a lot of theories about what happened. I’m so glad you don’t suspect Dylan or Diana anymore. That was just crazy. . . .” Mac stopped and I had to backtrack.

  “That’s not the kind of help I need,” he said.

  “Oh. What then?” I tried to hide my disappointment with a bright smile, but could tell by the way Mac held my gaze that he’d seen it.

  “It’s Diana. She won’t leave.”

  “What do you mean? I thought you arrested her.” I pretended innocence, not wanting to get Tom in trouble.

  Mac started walking again. He explained that he’d been trying to release Diana for several hours but she refused to go home. He admitted that it had been a mistake to arrest her in the first place.

  “I never bought her confession, but I thought I could use it to threaten Dylan,” Mac said.

  “You told him she had confessed?”

  Mac nodded. “I thought he would admit he’d killed Rafe if he thought Diana was in trouble. It didn’t work. Either he’s really innocent, or he saw through the plan and figured I’d have to let her go eventually.”

  “You still think he did it?”

  “I think he’s the best suspect we have.” Mac stopped walking and faced me. “He thought Rafe had killed his parents, he had access to the murder weapon, and he knew how allergic Rafe was.” Mac ticked his points off on his fingers.

  “Everyone knew Rafe was allergic, many people had access to the murderous bread, and he had more enemies than just Dylan,” I ticked back.

  Mac took a deep breath and continued walking. “You’ve gotten yourself involved again, haven’t you? I asked you to stay out of it. As if I don’t have enough to worry about . . .” Mac pushed the door to the station open and waited for me to enter.

  Lisa smiled at us until she got a good look at our stormy faces. She took a very intense interest in her computer as we walked toward Mac’s office in silence.

  “Okay, tell me what you know,” Mac said after shutting his office door.

  I was unprepared for this. In the past he had just warned me off and refused to listen to anything I had to say. I took a moment to gather my thoughts. Mac’s blue-gray gaze didn’t help me to focus.

  “First of all, I’ve known Dylan practically my whole life and he’s not a killer.”

  Mac snorted and took a breath to respond, but I held up my hand.

  “Also, there were several other people in Rafe’s life that had an issue with him. Just because Dylan thought Rafe had killed his parents doesn’t mean he was the only one with a motive.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Well, Lucan Reed didn’t like the way Rafe ran the coven. They fought about it all the time.”

  “You think Lucan would have killed Rafe because he didn’t like the spells he cast under a full moon?” Mac didn’t hide his sarcasm.

  “And Morgan Lavelle was recently thrown out of the coven for similar reasons. She’d been dating—or something—Rafe and they had a big fight.”

  “Okay, that sounds more interesting. What else do you know about Morgan?”

  I shook my head, wishing I’d known I would be giving a presentation. I would have done more prep work.

  “She’s creepy. And she sells knives and nasty spell kits.”

  Mac smiled. I did love to see his smile, but this one wasn’t as friendly as most. This was one of a cat that had cornered a mouse. I didn’t enjoy feeling like a cornered mouse.

  I crossed my arms. “If you’d given me warning, I would have come up with some better answers.” I took a deep breath. I had planned to have more proof when I told him this part, but here was my opportunity. “She’s a liar. She was at the ceremony that night, and I can prove it.”

  “Go on.” Mac sat back and watched me.

  I pulled the charm out of my pocket. I’d wrapped it in plastic as soon as I got it home in case there were any fingerprints left after Seth had handled it. I dropped it onto his desk with a flourish.

  “What’s this?”

  “Seth and I found it out where the ceremony took place in the woods. It’s from a charm bracelet that Diana sells in her store.”

  “So? You aren’t trying to pin this on your best friend, are you?”

  “No. That charm came off of Morgan’s bracelet. I saw her wearing it the day after Rafe was killed and it was missing this charm. I’m sure of it.”

  Mac rubbed his chin and leaned forward to look at the charm.

  “Okay. I’ll look into it.” He leaned back again. “By the way, Charla and I are looking at other people, but we had to arrest Dylan because, right now, the evidence points to him and he has a history of disappearing. That’s between you and me. Don’t tell anyone else, including anyone related to you, Diana, Alex, or Tom Andrews.”

  I nodded.

  Mac slipped the charm into an envelope and scrawled something illegible across the front.

  “I’d really like to go to dinner with you and not talk about the case,” Mac said. He came around his desk and put his arm around my shoulders. “I thought if we could get all of this out in the open then maybe we could talk about . . . more interesting things . . . at dinner.”

  I felt a little thrill down my spine at the thought of more interesting things. I really didn’t want to fight with him or talk about murder. I nodded agreement.

  “Will you help me get your friend out of here?”

  I followed him to the back, where Diana sat in one of the interview rooms. I looked through the window in the door. Someone had brought her a sleeping bag and a pillow. It looked like Alex had been sending take-out meals to her as well. The door wasn’t locked when I reached out to turn the knob. I looked at Mac and he cocked an eyebrow in an “I told you so” way.

  “Diana?” I peeked around the doorframe.

  She was sitting at the table with her head in her hands. Even her curls were droopy. She quickly looked up at the sound of my voice. She stood and rushed over to me.

  “Have you found anything that can help Dylan?” she asked.

  I nodded. “Maybe.”

  “I can’t leave here until I bring Dylan home with me. He’s all the family I have. I ha
ve to get him out of here.” She took my hands and squeezed.

  “I know.” And I did know. She’d taken over the care of Dylan when their parents died. Even though they were both technically adults, the seven-year age difference meant that Diana felt responsible for him. She’d always been more organized, more driven, and more grown-up than Dylan. They fell into a way of relating that was less sibling-sibling, and more parent-child.

  “Mac says he can’t let Dylan leave yet. We have to find out what really happened,” Diana said.

  “Let me take you home. You can get cleaned up, take a shower, and help us figure this out. It’s not doing Dylan or anyone else any good having to worry about you at the jail.”

  In the end, Diana barely had time for a shower.

  27

  We turned the corner on the way to Diana’s house and saw fire trucks on my street. With a sinking feeling I detoured to see what was happening. As we got closer, I realized they were parked in front of my house. Two firemen were outside chasing Baxter.

  I left my Jeep in the street, and ran to the front yard. The alarms were sounding again from inside the house. Seth called to Baxter, who seemed to be having too much fun dodging the firemen. I looked at the porch and saw that Seth held Tuffy at arm’s length and the little dog had light blue paint on his feet and belly.

  “Oh my.” Diana held her hand up to her mouth. I suspected she was covering a smile.

  Dad came out of the house with Baxter’s leash, and stopped dead when he saw me.

  “This isn’t as bad as it looks, Clyde,” Dad said. He held his hands out to stop me from progressing toward the house.

  Baxter spotted me and bounded over to say hello. The firemen gratefully followed while Dad snapped on his leash.

  The two guys looked nervously from me to my father. One of them said, “Everything seems . . . safe, so we’ll be going now.”

  Vi’s warning about Dad’s home repairs echoed in my head.