Good Witch Hunting

by Dakota Cassidy

  She blew her hair from her face and shook her head. “No. But thank you.”

  Trixie was one patient lady. I was impressed she hadn’t lost her cool by now. Were it me, I’d have been rattling some cages, but of course, I’m impatient and sometimes impulsive. She’d also been eerily quiet about everything that was going on around us, and I was trying my best to respect that, despite the fact that I had a million questions rolling around my brain.

  “You need to eat, Trixie. It’s well past lunchtime. We can’t have you passing out before they release Coop, can we? She’ll need you to be strong.”

  “I’m used to fasting from time to time. It’s no big deal, really. I’m fine with just this water,” she replied, holding up the almost-empty bottle I’d bought her.

  Used to fasting, huh? Trixie intrigued me almost as much as the odd Coop, and I found it impossible to keep my thoughts to myself anymore.

  Sliding to the edge of my flimsy plastic seat, I turned to her. “You’re used to fasting? Do you mean like juice cleanses and stuff? I swear, I envy people like you who can stick to something like that. I’d lose my mind if I didn’t have a Twinkie every day.”

  Win snickered in my ear and Arkady boldly laughed.

  Her eyes lifted to meet mine, shiny and soft. She tinkled a laugh, a laugh as sweet and gentle as she appeared. “No. Not a juice cleanse. I just mean using moderation. But I get what you mean about Twinkies. Though, my personal favorite is a Funny Bone.”

  “And you’d give up perfectly good food, why?” It was unfathomable to me. Who gave up a Funny Bone?

  “For Lent, of course.”

  Okay. So she was religious. That made sense. Oh, but wait—Coop had called her sister. Was she…? No. A nun? Seriously? With a tattoo shop? Hardly likely.

  “That might explain Coop calling Trixie sister.” Win suggested the very thought I’d just had, making me nod my head.

  I placed a hand on hers and smiled. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

  “You’ve been sitting here with me for six solid hours after knowing me for thirty minutes, you can have my social security number if you want it.”

  I giggled and patted her hand. She had a sense of humor even in the midst of this turmoil. That was good. “Did Coop call you Sister Trixie Lavender? Or did I mishear her?”

  Now her smile went a little sad and even forlorn, something I hadn’t meant to make happen. But she bobbed her head. “You did hear correctly. I used to be a nun. Coop forgets to just call me plain old Trixie most times.”

  No way… Trixie was a nun. Or used to be a nun. Huh.

  But this was yet another odd quirk about the lovely Coop to add to her multitude of quirks—her formal way of addressing people. However, forget that. I wanted to know why Trixie wasn’t a nun anymore. And I really wanted to know what made a nun leave the church to open a tattoo shop?

  But that wasn’t to be right now. In a burst of sound and motion, Coop finally came out from behind the ugly gray door of the same room where Starsky and Hutch had interrogated me, with a frowning Luis hot on her heels.

  And the poor thing looked frazzled and exhausted. Trixie was the first to hop up and rush to her, throwing her arms around Coop’s shoulders and giving her a hard hug. “Are you okay, friend?”

  Coop nodded, patting Trixie awkwardly on the back with a stiff hand. But her green eyes told a different story. There was relief in them when she saw Trixie, clear as day.

  As Trixie and Coop talked quietly, I approached Luis, who looked quite serious in his dapper Brooks Brothers pinstripe suit and new glasses. “So what are we up against? How bad is it?”

  “Forgive me for being so bold, Stevie, but who is this woman?” he asked, looking down at me from behind his glasses.

  I knew that look—the one that made people shrink, but it was usually reserved for meanie-butt Detective Moore. Thus, I was taken aback. “What do you mean?”

  He tightened his grip on his expensive leather briefcase. “I mean, there is no history anywhere of any Coop With No Last Name. The moment you summoned me, I had my secretary set about the task of finding any information we could on Miss Coop because I don’t like surprises. Yet, there’s not a word about either her or Miss Lavender anywhere. They aren’t online. They’re without a Facebook page—in fact, there’s no social media for either one of them. How, I ask you, can I defend someone without so much as an address, let alone a social security card? Everything about this woman is fishy, Stevie. Even the way she addresses me as ‘Luis Lipton Esquire’ is indeed odd. What’s going on here?”

  I blinked before I tugged his sleeve and pulled him to the nearest corner while Sandwich watched us with curious eyes. “Are you telling me they don’t have a Facebook page? The horror,” I mocked, pretending to clutch my pearls.

  He sucked in his sagging cheeks, pushing a hand into his trouser pocket. “This is not a joke, Miss Cartwright.”

  I was a little bit peeved. Luis was the best criminal defense attorney in the Pacific Northwest, and we paid him an enormous amount of money on the off chance something should come up—as in, anything from scams to murder—and suddenly he couldn’t function because Coop had no Facebook page?

  “But that’s why I pay you so much money in retainer fees, because even if she doesn’t have a soul, it’s your job to find her one and fix this.”

  “Stephania,” Win soothed in my ear. “Luis is a good bloke. Clearly our problem is bigger than we thought. Don’t sass the man. Find out what to do from here.”

  Win was, as always, right. I think my blood sugar was low at this point, and it was making me cranky.

  There was a small silence between us before I broke it by saying, “I’m sorry, Luis. I’m just hungry and tired. Tell me what we’re up against and what we can do about it.”

  “First, we need to find out where she comes from. Her full name, where she’s been before coming to Ebenezer Falls and so on. Your Detective Moore was quite pleased with himself when he, too, found out she had no history to speak of. It doesn’t make for an easy defense if I can’t refer to her past good behavior or lack of criminal record when she doesn’t have anything to refer to. That said, miraculously, she hasn’t been charged. But I fear she may if her fingerprints come up on that tattoo gun they found at the scene, and the gun proves to have something lethal in it—like poison? In my experience, that’s the first thing they’ll look for. The evidence against her isn’t exactly overwhelming, but the motive they’ve created about the raise in her rent and her violent nature is a perfect storm.”

  Dang it all. “So the tattoo gun…? It’s what they think killed Hank?”

  “Oh, we played a fine game of possum about that gun, Detective Moore and I did. So, possibly. I believe that is the instrument they think was used to kill Mr. Morrison. And yes, it is in fact Coop’s tattoo gun. But as expected, the detectives were quite evasive. They also have an anonymous source who claims to have heard a rather loud disagreement she had with Mr. Morrison over their rent, wherein she mentioned killing him.”

  Well, it wasn’t as though I couldn’t see Coop, what little I knew of her, threatening to kill someone, meaning this made things look very, very bad.

  “I wonder who the ‘anonymous source’ is?” I asked.

  “That’s why it’s called anonymous. But the caller claimed Coop argued with Hank Morrison—quite animatedly, in fact. However, all the police questioning revolved around the subject of that tattoo gun. Also, the spatter on her boot, which I’m happy to report, turned out to be paint. Not blood. Still, it doesn’t look good. He was killed in their store. The tattoo gun is hers, and worse, she’s shown clear signs of violent tendencies. She assaulted an officer of the law, Stevie.”

  I winced. Yes. She’d knocked Detective Moore around a little, but he’d deserved that broken nose, and I said as much. “He deserved that. He was pretty pushy. She was just looking out for me, Luis.”

  He nodded his head, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “
To the tune of a broken nose and fractured cheekbone? That takes some doing, and some rage.”

  I rolled my eyes and blew out an exasperated breath. “He’s still breathing, isn’t he? He didn’t lose a limb.”

  Luis’s eyebrow rose. “I hardly think that’s the point. That they didn’t charge her with assault still has me scratching my head. We need to know what makes Miss Coop tick. I had only a brief meeting with her before the detectives began questioning. But I had a great deal of trouble getting anything out of her.”

  My head was whirling with questions, and it was a fight to stay focused on anything like hope when everything appeared so bad. Luis was a shark, and if he was stumped, that meant trouble.

  “Explain what you mean by trouble getting anything out of her? She wouldn’t talk to you?”

  His sigh was ragged. “If one-word sentences and the occasional grunt is ‘talking,’ we have a long way to go. She denies harming Mr. Morrison. In her very brief words, she told me she ‘found him that way’ and that was the most in only a handful of words I could wring out of her. I don’t know what she’s frightened of, but we must dig deeper into her, Stevie. That she’s so tight lipped is to her detriment. Though, I didn’t have to fret over the notion she’d say anything incriminating, which can be quite helpful in some situations, but refusing to even answer Detective Kaepernick when she asked if Coop would like something to drink is too far.”

  I tamped down a snort. Coop had taken my words to heart when I told her to keep quiet. “That’s because I told her not to say anything else to anyone unless you were present. Our wires crossed.”

  Luis frowned at me, the wrinkles in his forehead deep lines of frustration. “Oh, they’ve more than crossed. Now, I must head back to Seattle. I anticipate dense traffic the entire way in this weather. But I have my work cut out for me, and I must get to it before Ebenezer Falls’ finest get back the results of the fingerprinting and DNA that I’m desperately worried will match Coop’s. In the meantime, she cannot leave Ebenezer Falls. She’s not under arrest, but she’s certainly under grave suspicion. Also, they’ll need to find somewhere else to stay due to the fact that the entire building has been deemed a crime scene, and their living quarters are in a room at the store.”

  My disbelief was real. “So you managed to get her out without bail?”

  I’d been harsh with Luis, and now I felt like a real jerk because he’d somehow kept Coop from ending up behind bars.

  Brushing the front of his suit, he squared his shoulders and cleared his throat. “And that, my dear Miss Cartwright, is why you pay me the big bucks.”

  With those parting words, he marched out of the police station and into the swirl of falling snow, leaving me flabbergasted at his ability to keep Coop out of jail with so much working against her. Not that I doubted Coop could hold her own in jail. She’d probably chew her way through someone’s intestines before she’d take any guff.

  Regardless, I deserved nothing less than Luis’s ire for doubting him, and that only added to my ever-mounting pile of guilt.

  Still, I sighed with relief as I made my way over to Coop and Trixie. I reached for Coop’s hand, which was ice cold, and squeezed it. “Coop, are you okay? You must be hungry. Let’s get you and Trixie something to eat, yes? A nice warm meal and a quiet place to talk are in order.”

  “The poor thing, Dove. She looks positively broken,” Win muttered in sympathy.

  “Dah, Zero. It’s a pity,” Arkady agreed.

  Coop’s head whipped around, her eyes confused as she scanned the interior of the police station.

  Trixie gripped her arm, her eyes alarmed. “What’s wrong, Coop?”

  But Coop pulled from her grasp and instead looked to me with wide-eyed fear—her next words stunning me into complete silence. “Who is Dove, and why is Dove broken, Stevie Cartwright?”

  Chapter 7

  I gasped sharply, and so did my ghostly friends from above. Was it possible Coop could hear Win? Maybe Arkady, too?

  Holy cats!

  But I had to be very careful here. Very careful indeed. As much as I hated to do it, I played dumb. Don’t get me wrong, I know almost everyone in town thinks I’m bananapants and I don’t really talk to ghosts, and I’m okay with that. I’ve made my peace with it, but to those who’ve come to me, searching for answers from the Great Beyond, I know I’ve brought them a modicum of peace.

  However, they can’t hear what I can hear. What if Coop is someone Adam Westfield is using to get to me? He’s not just the man who stole my powers, but ruined my entire life and had me run out of my coven on a rail—and he didn’t just do it once. He possessed a body just to get to me. I’m not ever going to forget that, or forget that he has connections and powerful spells no dead person should—not even a dead warlock.

  So forgive me if I proceed with extreme caution.

  Calling on my only brush with acting from my fifth-grade play, wherein Miss Castelano (our phys-ed teacher) cast me as the “third street urchin from the right” in the chorus of our disastrous rendition of Les Mis, I cocked my head with an exaggerated tilt and lifted my shoulders with a dramatic heave. “Whatever are you talking about, Coop?” I asked, my words stilted and choppy as though I’d forgotten how to construct a sentence.

  Win groaned in my ear. “That was dreadful, Stephania. Painful, even.”

  Now Coop’s eyes zipped about the room, her lips parting, her fists clenched as though she were ready to go into battle. “Who is that and why does he talk funny?”

  “Who is who, Coop?” Trixie asked, panic in her voice, gripping her friend’s arm again and forcing her to look at her.

  Okay. We had trouble. Right here in River City. Coop could hear Win. I knew it as sure as I knew my hair was nothing without caramel highlights and a trim every six weeks, and that meant I had to do something fast. I didn’t have time to figure out the how or why of Coop.

  Leaning into her, I whispered in conspiratorial fashion, “Coop, come with me and I’ll explain everything. Okay? And I think you know what I mean by everything.”

  Her fear didn’t exactly lend to her being here because of Adam Westfield, but maybe she was a better actress than I’d ever be. So I was willing to take the chance she was like me and could hear ghosts. Otherwise, this was an elaborate ruse just to get to me, and those dots didn’t connect.

  But Trixie held up her hands and frowned, firmly shaking her head. “Okay. Hold on here. I’m not going anywhere until someone tells me what’s going on, and neither is Coop.” Gripping her friend’s hand, she pulled her close to her side and huffed for good measure to prove her point.

  Trixie’s reaction sealed the deal for me. I didn’t think they had anything to do with Adam.

  I blew out a breath and smiled at them both reassuringly. “I promise to explain everything if you’ll just come with me. You can’t go back to the store anyway. It’s officially a crime scene, and if you two are living there, as I suspect you are, you have nowhere to go until forensics clears the store. Why don’t you come back to my place, we’ll order in an early dinner, and I’ll explain. I have plenty of room, but,” I paused, looking around as the entire police department watched us, “I can’t explain here.”

  Coop nodded, pushing her hands under her armpits. “She’s right, Trixie. We can’t go back to Inkerbelle’s. Mr. Luis Lipton Esquire said so.”

  Trixie’s brown gaze was pensive at best when she sent signals with her eyes to her friend. “Are you sure you’re okay with going to Stevie’s? Because if not, we can figure it out.”

  When Coop looked at me, assessing me from head to toe as though she’d be able to see if something was awry on my person just by way of a glance, she nodded curtly. “Yes. I’m sure. I trust her.” Then she patted Trixie on the shoulder with one of her awkward gestures and headed toward the doors of the station.

  Trixie shuddered a sigh of resignation. “If Coop says she trusts you, then your house it is. We’ll follow you in our car.”

  I he
ard her hesitance, yet the signals she’d sent to Coop with her eyes suggested her friend had some sort of lie-detecting ability, and that was even wackier than hearing ghosts.

  But hey, I have two ghost friends and a talking bat. Who am I to say she isn’t a human lie detector?

  * * * *

  “She heard you, Win! I know she did.” I pulled out of the police station’s parking lot, watching in my rearview to ensure Trixie was right behind me in her rusty Caddy.

  “I’m afraid you’re probably correct, Dove.”

  “How is that possible, Win?”

  “How is it possible you hear me—or Arkady, for that matter?”

  “Because I’m a witch, International Man of Mystery! A witch with medium abilities.”

  “No. You’re a former witch who’s been stripped of her powers. Yet, somehow, the fates have allowed you to hear us. Who’s to say Coop isn’t one of your kind?”

  Yes. That was true. I’d had blips now and again since my powers were slapped out of me (literally slapped), but nothing concrete, and come to think of it, nothing at all these last few months.

  “No,” I denied fervently. “I’d know if she were a witch, Spy Guy.”

  “How would you know, Stephania?”

  I gripped the steering wheel tighter, still shivering without my coat as splotchy snowflakes spattered on the windshield. “Because we know our own kind.”

  “And how is that? Do you have a particular scent? Is it like when dogs sniff each other’s derrieres? How can you know?”

  I tried to focus on the road, but my mind was in overdrive. “Never mind. We just know. She’s not a witch. The community is small. Everyone pretty much knows everyone. Just trust me on that. Think of it like Plane Limbo. You know everyone there, right? It’s similar but different.”

  “Then she must be a medium, Boss,” Bel chirped from my purse. “A scary, violent, really pretty one, but a medium nonetheless. Something’s going on with her. I don’t know what, but you mark my words, she’s got a creep factor that’s adorable, but still creepy.”