Stepping away from their car, I shooed them off as Trixie got into the refurbished rust bucket Caddy and started the engine. It turned over with a purr, just like Win had promised when he’d offered to have it fixed for them.
“Godspeed, Coop,” Win said, his husky voice full of emotion. “May your journeys always fare thee well.”
Coop broke out in one of her very scarce, but certainly infamous grins and saluted the sky. “Aye-aye, Captain. Thank you, Crispin Alistair Winterbottom. Thank you very much for all your help.”
With that, she hopped in the car, pulled Livingston to her lap, and then they were gone, leaving nothing behind but the scent of gas fumes and the sound of Trixie’s tinkling laughter.
Sighing, I looked up at the sky. It was a beautiful day, easily seventy and climbing, puffy clouds smooshed together, and the sun was a ball of butter. How quickly the weather had turned from last week’s blizzard. But I felt an empty space in my heart where Coop and Trixie had grown, and I couldn’t enjoy it.
“Don’t be sad, Dove. We’ll see them soon enough.”
I walked to the front steps, once covered in snow, now covered in planters filled with pansies, courtesy of Chester and Enzo. “I know we will. It was just nice to have people who truly understand what it’s like to live in a human world when you know the paranormal exists. It’s not like I can confide in anyone here in Eb Falls, you know?”
“Ah, but you can confide in me, Stephania. I’ll always listen.”
And I knew that was true, but I was still sad. “Yep. I know. But you’re not here-here, you know what I mean?”
“Well, someday, I hope to be there-there. What say you to that?”
Stuffing my hands in the pockets of my vintage Jordache jeans, I rose and turned toward the front door. “I say you’d better not do anything stupid. I can’t understand a darn thing about the plans for that gazebo, and I’m pretty sure, control freak that you are, you’ll want to be here to explain when Enzo builds it or we’ll end up with, heaven forbid, a tree house.”
“The horror,” Win teased.
Heading inside, I inhaled deeply the sweet scent of home, where I’d placed daffodils that had finally bloomed in a glass vase on the table by the entryway. “Indeed.”
“So do tell, Dove, are you mysteried out for the time being?”
“You know, I know you guys think I love this mystery business a little too much, but this one? This one was tough. I never really figured out who the killer was. I didn’t have time with everything going on with Coop and Trixie. It was all just handed to me in confessional fashion.”
“Ah, so the challenge is digging around and finding your own answers, eh?”
I bobbed my head with a smile. “I guess so. Either way, I think I’m good for a little while. So what say we go wash away Stevie’s blues with a couple of Twinkies and a tall glass of milk?”
“Ugh, Stephania. Can’t we wash it away with something more sophisticated? Say a lovely zinfandel and some tea cakes?”
I stopped in the entryway and looked up at the ceiling. “What the heck are tea cakes? Is that anything like spotted dick?”
Win garbled a laugh. “Nay, Stephania. Nothing at all.”
“Still sounds fishy to me. I’m settling for Twinkies, and you’ll just have to like it. Besides, I thought this was a wash-Stevie’s-blues-away party. Don’t you want to see me happy?”
“Always, always. Dove. Always.”
The End
(Thank you so much for joining Stevie and gang for another Witchless in Seattle installment! I know you waited a long time and your patience is much appreciated. I hope you’ll look for Trixie and Coop in their own story, Then There Were Nun, the first book in the Nun of Your Business Mysteries. Until then, happy Spring—may all your journeys fare thee well!)
The End
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Play That Funky Music White Koi
A Lemon Layne Mystery, Book 2
Dakota Cassidy
Chapter 1
“Is that the music from Dateline I hear in the background, Lemon?” my BFF Coco Belinski asked, her tone rife with accusation.
I clicked the television off in guilt. “Don’t be silly, Coco. I was just getting ready for bed. You know too much stimulation is a sure trigger for my insomnia.”
“I do. That’s why I bought you that MP3 of a bunch of monks chanting. To help you sleep. That’s also why Dateline and all other murder mysteries, either real or even the tamest of strains known as Murder She Wrote, should not be a part of your daily diet anymore, Detective Layne. We’ve discussed this, haven’t we? This is your mental health calling and it likes status quo.”
I snorted at her favorite endearment as of late as I made my way to my bathroom to brush my teeth. I was no more a detective than she was a sheep herder.
It’s been almost three months since Coco and I were a given a bird’s-eye view of a real-life murder investigation, involving my mother’s ex-boyfriend, Myron Fairbanks. An investigation that brought up tons of unresolved issues, for me in particular. Issues from my past…
An investigation that also reminded me, solving a crime on a television show is decidedly different than solving one in real life.
Coco’s overprotective nature is the reason she’s calling me just before bedtime, and has every night since that chaos all went down—because she knows me well enough to know I’ve been having a bout with insomnia.
Though, my insomnia doesn’t all surround the murder of Myron, mind you. But I admit, there are nights when the vision of him in our gas station bathroom with a hole cut out of the back of his head does still haunt me.
So when given too much time on my hands, like when I can’t sleep, I inevitably turn to any sort of mystery I can get my greedy hands on. That’s always been my way.
It doesn’t have to be a murder mystery. It could be something as uncomplicated as the case of the missing thumbtack, and I’m britches deep, all on board to solve the case. My problem is the total immersion that occurs when I sink my teeth into any kind of puzzle.
The bigger problem? I can’t let go. I jump in both feet to the exclusion of all else until I figure it out.
Now, you’d think after the last mess I’d ended up in—which, by the by, included the invasion of a zombie hunting club in our small town of Fig Harbor, WA, mass hysteria over government conspiracies, a killer with his gun pointed at both Coco and I, and a brush with death—my mystery-solving days would be over.
Nope. In fact, that very encounter is what continues to fuel my passion—because I wasn’t nearly as good at solving a crime as I’d once thought. I’d missed things. Important things. There were clues I didn’t investigate thoroughly or look more deeply into because quite frankly, I’m an armchair sleuth at best.
And that bugged me no end. My mother’s innocence had been in question for a moment or two during the investigation, and I’d fumbled the ball. It left me kicking myself, mostly late at night when the shadows of the trees in our backyard made black-talon silhouettes out of their limbs on my walls.
“Lemon? You still there?”
I sighed as I squeezed minty toothpaste onto my toothbrush. There was no lying to Coco. She could see right through me. I’d been caught.
Looking away from my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I confessed as such. “Okay. Confession. I watched Dateline. Guilty. But The Bachelor’s on hiatus and there was nothing else on. Anyway, it’s over now and I’m going to bed. Promise.”
She yawned into the phone. “Give JF a big smooch from me and tell her I’ll see her tomorrow. Now get some sleep, fledgling detective. When I walk into the store tomorrow, I don’t want to see those unbecoming shadows under your eyes. Sweet dreams.”
I clicked off the phone and brushed my teeth, yawning, too. I thought about the irony of my yawn as I turned off the light. Sure, I was yawning now—before I got into bed. Once I got there, all snug under my favorite comforter, my mind whirled like a dervish.
But I prepared for another sleepless night anyway by scooping up my rescue spider monkey, Jessica Fletcher, from her fake tree limb perch in my room and dropping a kiss on her mischievous head from Auntie Coco. She gave me a sleepy coo and snuggled against my chest before I deposited her in her cage and tucked her favorite stuffed unicorn against her cheek.
I set about brushing my unruly, shoulder-length hair, a fruitless act for sure. No matter how many fancy highlights I got in burnt umber slathered all over my muddy brown hair, no matter how much product I used, it would always be too kinky-curly and uncontrollable to do much with but put in a ponytail.
Dabbing moisturizer beneath my eyes, I had to admit if I had nothing else, I had clear, bright eyes and decent skin. I’d acquired a light tan from the occasional outing to the docks in town for lunch or drinks with Coco, giving me a healthy glow and naturally blushed cheeks.
Unfortunately, that’s sort of all I have going for me. I’m pretty short, and while I’m wiry and in decent enough shape, I’m not exactly bodaciously gifted, if you know what I mean. Sighing, I set the moisturizer down and put my brush away, dreading this time of night.
And then I turned and looked at my bed in all its big, beautiful king-size glory, with plump pillows in ivory and periwinkle blue, the matching fluffy comforter with eyelet trim, and sighed again. Lately, my bed had become my torture chamber, but I was trying to do what the doctor in town told me to do after I’d finally seen him about my insomnia—keep a regular schedule for sleep. No coffee after three in the afternoon, go to bed at the same time every day, rise and shine at the same time every day, exercise, eat well, blah, blah, blah.
Throwing my bathrobe over the end of the bed and turning off the soft-blue glass lamp on my nightstand, I did the same thing I’d done for the last three months—got in, flipped on my monk chants on my phone and waited for my thoughts to spin out of control.
As I hunkered under the covers, forcing myself to think about the coming of spring and all the things I wanted to do with my koi pond out back, I found a rather pleasant spot in my brain where tulips and daffodils swayed gracefully in the breeze amongst the rocks surrounding my fish. While I imagined the wind, warm and filled with the tang of the ocean, ruffling my mop of unruly hair, I closed my eyes.
A sudden banging from somewhere far away startled me to an upright position. I bolted forward, pulling the comforter from around my midsection, and blinked at the sun streaming across the bottom of my bed.
Glancing at the clock, I noted it was seven in the morning.
Holy cats, I’d slept for seven uninterrupted hours until that incessant banging. Seven lovely hours without dreams of zombies and brains, dead men and detached limbs, walloping me over the head.
Pushing my way from the bed, I grabbed my robe and stuck my arms in, pulling it around my body as I slid into my slippers and peeked out the window of my bedroom—the one overlooking the front of the house. Leon was supposed to open our family-owned convenience store/barbecue, the Smoke and Petrol today.
My mother May and I own and operate the store, but we have occasional help, even in the off season. Fig is a tourist town, set amongst the trees, mountains and water of the Pacific Northwest, and just a quick ferry ride from Seattle. Leon’s our most reliable part-timer, a high school kid who often opens for us before he goes to his classes.
But why would he be banging on something? Leon was astute, responsible, and quiet. But all that banging sounded like he was in the process of rebuilding Rome.
I left Jessica in her cage and flew down the stairs, hoping to avoid waking my mother. She’s seventy now, and about as easy to keep track of as a herd of greased cats. But even greased cats need their rest when they play as hard as Mom does, and she’d had a late night last evening at her current obsession, hot yoga.
As I plowed down our wood and wrought iron spiral staircase to the front door, I realized the banging came from someone rapping on the door. I hesitated, and if you remember what happened to me a few months ago, you’ll understand why I’ve had a new security system installed, complete with intercom.
Pressing the button on the intercom, installed right next to our beautiful wood door with the stained-glass cutout in bright blues and oranges, I asked, “Who is it?”
There was a shuffling noise, as though someone were trying to get their footing, or maybe even rearrange the porch furniture for all I knew, and then I heard, “Who’s there?”
I tilted my head. Maybe it was because I was awakened from a very sound sleep, but I didn’t recognize the gruff voice. “I don’t know. You rang my doorbell. Who the heck are you?”
“Lemon-Meringue? Is that you?” someone crooned with a croak. “Or is it just somebody who sounds like Lemon? Like a pod Lemon who invaded the real Lemon’s body?”
Sighing, I realized I didn’t need to look out the window to see who it was. Only Waylan Caprice—or Cappie, as he’s known to us Figgers—could think I’d been abducted by alien body snatchers. But I wanted to be sure.
“Is that you, Cappie?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Question is, is that really you, Lemon?”
I was still a little ticked at Cappie after all the trouble he’d stirred up by broadcasting one of his crazy conspiracy theories when Myron was killed. The unusual circumstances of Myron’s death had turned into a sensationalistic nightmare after Cappie got on his YouTube channel and told his bananapants followers Myron had been killed by a governmentally engineered zombie (you know, because of the hole in his head and the piece of his brain missing).
All hell had broken loose in Fig because of him. People insane enough to believe that theory had shown up with signs and zombie-killing weapons, hoping to see and maybe even capture a real zombie. They’d camped out in the woods and all over the docks in town, creating havoc everywhere they went, and the only thing they’d ended up catching was the flu and the poor mayor, who’d been out fishing. But that’s another story for another time.
Suffice to say, I’m still a little chuffed with our local doomsday prepper/conspiracy theorist. “Yes, it’s me, Cappie,” I said, typing in the security code and flinging the door open.
Cappie hopped back into the sunlight, his customary clogged feet doing a nervous jig. He looked up toward the bright blue, almost cloudless sky and squinted as though he’d actually find aliens commandeering the Enterprise or something.
“How do I know it’s really you, Lemon? Where’d that voice come from? Was it generated by the mother ship somewhere up there in the big blue beyond?”
“Cappie?”
He rocked back on his heels, his skinny legs poking out of a pair of scruffy knee-length shorts as he tugged at his peace sign T-shirt and gave me a suspicious glance from his glazed eyes. “What?”
“It’s Lemon. Really and truly. The one and only Lemon Layne.”
“Prove it!” he yelped and took another cautious step backward.
I wiped the sleep from my eyes and tried to smile reassuringly at him, even though without my glasses, he was sort of blurry.
“You rang my doorbell, Waylan Caprice. Maybe you should be doing the proving. How do I know you’re the real Cappie and not some governmentally engineered decoy of Cappie?” I teased. “Maybe you’re a robot who looks just like the Fig Harbor version of Cappie.”
“That ain’t true! Who’s been telling ya that pack o’ lies? I’m just Cappie and that’s all.”
I grinned at him and reached for his weathered hand. “And I’m just Lemon. That’s all. Now, there’s a certain amount of trust we’re going to have to allow one another at this point. So, either I close the door and go back to bed—because by the by, it’s seven in the morning, Waylan Caprice—or you believe I’m the real Lemon and tell me what it is you want.”
He paused, evading my reach for him, and fisted his hands together behind his back. “Oh, right! That’s right. I came to ask you something. It’s important.”
I leaned toward him, holding my breath to avoid the s
tench of turkey jerky and stale beer, two of Cappie’s life staples. “And that is?”
“How come that lady’s asleep in your fish pond out back? I was collectin’ cans in the woods and I saw her, plain as day. Swear to ya.” He peered intently at me. “She a relative a yours? Or just some drunk tourist who wandered out there?”
I sighed. Cappie once thought he saw Bigfoot, too. Thankfully, it had been before he’d discovered YouTube, so he didn’t rile up as many people back then as he had with the zombie scare.
So the question is, to indulge or not to indulge? That’s always the question with Cappie. Everyone in Fig knows he’s a lot left of center, but we mostly humor him because he bothers no one except for the occasional “down with the government” rant, and if he’s nothing else, he’s ours, and in one way or the other, we all try to look out for him.
He’s a vivid part of our community, and while we usually dismiss the idea the rubber soles on our shoes are rigged with listening devices for the CIA, or that the power lines are tapped, he’s still ours. Though, I don’t envy his daughter Noreen, who essentially chases after him like one would a toddler. To say he’s a handful is to say the least.
Cappie lives in a beat-up camper in Noreen’s backyard, where he thinks he’s successfully hiding from The Man. He spends his days cooking up conspiracy theories and filming videos about doomsday prepping (because the apocalypse is just ’round the bend and down the road a piece, you know). Then he has some poor high school student upload them for him at the library so he won’t leave behind any Internet footprints.
He won’t live in Noreen’s house with her because of her birds—a collection of cockatoos Cappie’s convinced are government informants because they’re trained to speak. She decided the safest place for him, short of her house, is in her backyard. And mostly he stays out of trouble back there.
Mostly.
Cappie tapped me on the arm with a gnarled finger. “Lemon, you listenin’? You better wake that lady up. If the boys in blue see her, they’ll throw her in the clink. They always haul me off to the tank when I fall asleep in ol’ Major’s backyard after I been drinkin’.”
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