Good Witch Hunting

by Dakota Cassidy

  Another police car screeched to a halt and Chief Ainsley Burrows plowed out of it, his portly body stalking its way to our backyard. My mother instantly lifted her chin in haughty disdain meant for Chief Burrows’ viewing pleasure.

  He was still on her mortal enemy list, too. He’d been the one to suggest Mom come into the station for questioning when Myron was found in our convenience store bathroom, and believe you me, she hadn’t forgotten.

  He tipped his head to acknowledge Mom, but his smallish eyes, set above his puffy red cheeks, were serious. “May. Good to see you as always,” he acknowledged.

  Mom sucked in her cheeks and turned her back to him, looking to Leon, who had Cappie still behind him. “I’m going to go get Jessica Fletcher and make some coffee for the boys here, Sugarsnap. But not you, Justice Carver. You’ll get no morning kick in the pants from these laboring hands! Leon, you stay here with Cappie. He needs you more than I do.” With that, she turned on her heel and went toward the back of the house, pulling the key from her pocket and jamming it into the lock.

  I blew out a breath and gave Justice and Chief Burrows an awkward glance. “She’ll forgive what happened soon enough. Either that or she’ll lose her memory and forget. Whichever comes first.”

  Justice laughed, then frowned when Chief Burrows gave him a sharp, beady-eyed glance. He straightened instantly and cleared his throat. “I’ve already questioned Lemon, sir. Cappie’s up next.”

  As the small forensics team began to gather and cordon off my koi pond with the ever-familiar yellow tape I’d become so acquainted with in our bathroom after Myron’s murder, Chief Burrows cornered Cappie, who still shivered, hiding behind Leon.

  Chief smiled in encouragement. “It’s okay. I just want to ask you some questions. That all right?”

  Cappie nodded, gripping Leon’s slender arm, his face stricken.

  “So you found the body, Cap?”

  “I didn’t know it was a body,” he said, poking his head out from behind Leon, the greasy ropes of his salt-and-pepper hair falling in ropes around his shoulders. “I just thought she was sleepin’. That’s what I told Lemon, too. Thought she was passed out from tyin’ one on at Shrimpie’s or something. Looked like she was sleepin’, is all.”

  “Did you see her at Shrimpie’s, Cap? Maybe last night?” I asked gently.

  Shrimpie’s was our local bar—or should I say the most popular local bar where most of us in town gathered. There were other, less reputable places, but Shrimpie’s had the best jalapeño poppers and amazing fish and chips, which made it the chosen place to go.

  He scrunched up his face at me. “Naw. Ladies like her don’t go there, Lemon.”

  I’m not sure what category that left Coco and I in. We went to Shrimpie’s all the time.

  Chief Burrows nodded his balding head as though he were listening intently before he asked, “Why were you out here, Cappie? Kinda far from home, isn’t it, buddy?”

  Cappie’s suspicious eyes, surrounded by tiny lines of age, began to dart here and there. “I was collecting recyclables for Ed. I do it all the time, especially when it’s busy like it’s been lately with the tourist season startin’ up. All those dang kids, throwin’ things outta their cars like this is one big dump. Gotta get cleaned up, right? They got no respect for our dang town!”

  “So that’s how you found Miss Hoffer? You were out here in the woods, looking for recyclables?” Chief Burrows asked again, as though he didn’t believe Cappie.

  It should be said, our convenience store is just outside of town, surrounded by woods and with a single road between us and the shops in Fig Harbor. Like I mentioned, it’s a bit of a walk, but I could see Cappie doing it for some pocket money.

  “Yep. That’s what I said.” Cappie stood by his earlier statement, his lips clamping shut, but he stayed tucked safely behind Leon.

  The chief eyeballed the scene where Abby lay as the forensics team took samples and bagged things and the koi pond bubbled. “Ever seen a cup like that, Cappie?” the chief asked.

  I, too, wondered about the cup, and I really wished I had my glasses so I could examine it more clearly.

  Cappie was growing antsier by the second, as depicted by his feet as they began doing that staccato dance they did when he wanted away from a situation that made him feel uncomfortable. “Nope. But I tell ya what I have seen!” His voice rose, setting off alarm bells with all of us.

  “Cappie, it’s okay,” I soothed, reaching for his hand, but he scooted away and pointed at Abby’s body as though he were going to explode.

  “You see it, don’t you? Don’t you see?” he shrieked.

  “See what, Cappie?” Justice asked.

  Chief Burrows, clearly realizing the situation was getting Cappie all riled up, attempted a calm approach. “Cappie, take it easy. Something bad happened here. We need to find out what. But it doesn’t help when you’re jumping around like a cat on a hot tin roof.”

  “You bet somethin’ bad happened here! Don’t you see her neck, Chief? Look at her neck!”

  I squinted, hoping to see what Cappie saw, but there was no way that was going to happen without my glasses. “Cappie! What do you see?” I demanded.

  “Do I gotta do your work for ya? We been standing around here, jabberjawin’ all this time, but you didn’t look at her neck! Look at her neck, Chief. Just take a look! See them marks on it? I know how she died! You betcha I do!”

  “Cappie, what are you going on about? Hold still so we can talk about this!” Chief Burrows ordered, now clearly out of patience.

  “Aw, heck no! I’m not stickin’ around here, Boss. I’m goin’ home to make me a cross outta some garlic before nightfall. That’s what I’m gonna do, because those bite marks on her neck—those are vampire bites! We got a bloodsucking night dweller right here in Fig!”

  Chapter 3

  Everyone groaned all at once. “Don’t start with that again, Cappie!” Leon moaned, his shoulders slumping. “Wasn’t it enough that you got everybody in town all riled up about zombies? There’s no such thing as vampires. It’s all made up on TV and by those kooky authors with crazy imaginations. Knock it off.”

  “Oh yeah?” he hollered back, his bright eyes full of fire, his thin chest heaving beneath his ratty peace sign shirt. “Tell that to all the kids who watched that Twilight! They believe in ’em! They’re real, I tell ya!”

  I found it curious Cappie even knew about Twilight. Very curious indeed.

  Or comical, depending on how you looked at it.

  I cocked my head in his direction. “How do you know about Twilight, Cap? I thought the TV was a way for The Man to tap your house and secretly watch your every move? I didn’t even know you had one.”

  He threw a gnarled hand up at me and blustered, “Noreen watches it sometimes when I have supper with her. She knows how much I like her meatloaf and that’s how she gets me over there. I told her the government boys can hear everything she’s doin’, but she won’t listen to ol’ Cap. Thinks I’m crazy. But I know vampire bites when I see ’em, and those are vampire teeth marks on her neck!”

  I sighed. I sure didn’t want him to start up a bunch of hysteria the way he had last time, not at the beginning of tourist season. It was hard enough getting the zombie hunters out of town.

  I also still wished I had my glasses so I could see Abby better. As gruesome as that sounds, sometimes an outsider catches something the trained eye misses.

  “Leon, would you run back to the store and grab the extra set of glasses I keep under the cash register while I finish up here? I’ll take over for you as soon as I grab a shower.”

  He nodded, looking to Chief Burrows. “Can I take Cap with me?”

  The chief nodded, deeply ensconced in looking at Abby’s neck while the forensics team foraged around the koi pond.

  Leon held his hand out to Cappie. “C’mon, Cap. Come with me.”

  Thankfully, Cappie went without argument, and I mouthed a “thank you” to Leon before turning b
ack to the crime scene. “Anything else I can do here, Justice?”

  “You sure you didn’t hear anything last night?”

  As the sun grew warmer, I lifted my face to it, enjoying the slight heat it held. It warmed my chilled bones.

  “Nope. For the first time since Myron’s murder and our run-in with his killer, I had a date with the Sandman that paid off. I slept seven awesome hours all at once. But I’m starting to wonder if we shouldn’t hire a security guard for all the things happening while I sleep, because now I’m not sure I’m ever going to sleep again.”

  One of the forensics team picked up the chalice, holding it as another muttered in a joking tone, “Looks like dried blood, huh? Maybe Cappie’s not so far off the mark?”

  The other guy, a tall, lanky man with long arms and legs, frowned at him. “Better not let the chief hear you joking about stuff like that. You remember how crazy it got the last time Cappie spewed all that nonsense in the middle of the station? Could barely get in the door of Shrimpie’s with all those loony-tunes he brought here, running around dressed like zombies.”

  I might not be able to see very well right now, but my ears were sharper than ever. “Blood? In the chalice?”

  How strange and a little macabre, considering the vampire angle—which I, of course, absolutely was not. She didn’t appear to be bleeding anywhere, and the chalice was positioned such that it wasn’t close enough to her body for her to have bled into it. Though, it could be entirely possible it was Abby’s blood.

  The first guy who’d made the joke, shorter and husky, with a beard sprinkled with silver, eyed me in my bathrobe and, I’m sure, my wildly out-of-control hair. “Should you be here? Are you here in an official capacity?”

  I wasn’t sure if he was being snarky because of my bathrobe or really asking, but I became a little defensive. “This is my backyard and that’s my koi pond. I’m the one who found her, along with Cappie.”

  Justice set about soothing me. “Take it easy, Lemon. He’s just doing his job. We don’t want details leaked to the press until we know what’s going on. We have to be careful who we talk to.”

  As Leon came back with my glasses, I thanked him and slid them on and finally saw the entire picture. I think I liked things much better when I couldn’t see anything but blurry images.

  I now saw the marks on Abby’s neck clear as day. But I didn’t see much else. Abby looked as peaceful as she had without my glasses.

  “Cappie might be a little crazy about conspiracies and such, but he has a point. They do kinda look like bite marks,” I commented casually to Justice, pointing to Abby’s neck.

  Justice ran his hand over his sharp jaw and gave me the look that said maybe Cappie was rubbing off on me. “Not you, too, Lemon.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Don’t say. Please. Cappie’s probably already back in town getting everyone het up about governmentally engineered vampires. Next thing you know, Ethel over at the senior center won’t have a knitting club anymore, she’ll have a garlic-rosary-making club formed, ready to make a buck.”

  I fought sputtering a laugh. “That’s fair. Ethel knows how to turn just about anything into a buck.” I paused for a minute and decided I’d seen enough. No one would answer any questions I had anyway. I’d been down this road before and was always greeted with a closed door. “Look, can I go in now? I need to get myself together to take over for Leon. He needs to be off to his first class soon.”

  He gave me a strange look of surprise. “That’s it?”

  “What do you mean, that’s it?”

  He used the back of his hand to feel my forehead, his handsome face holding a stunned expression. “You’re not going to hang around and ask a bunch of questions until I want to put duct tape over your mouth just to hush you? You’re not going to nose around…do some snooping?”

  I batted my eyelashes, hoping he could see the effort from behind my round glasses. “Do you want to put duct tape over my mouth, Justice? Why would you want to put tape over a mouth that’s so sweet? Add to that, I’m so easygoing and nice,” I said sweetly, mocking him.

  “Until you sink your teeth into something and can’t let go. The last time almost got you and Coco killed, Lemon. I’d like never to see that happen again. You weren’t the only one traumatized by that attack on you, you know.” His eyes went a little intense with those words.

  I didn’t know how to respond to his intensity. We hadn’t spoken much about what happened that night, but I figured it was just part of his job. Yes, he’d shot Myron’s killer, but he didn’t kill him, and while I was sure that had to have come with repercussions for a time, he’d never expressed any concern for me. Not after the initial encounter anyway, only his sadness for the killer’s father.

  Of course, I’d expect Justice to care about me. We’ve been friends since we were toddlers. I guess I just didn’t expect it to be quite so heavy.

  I gripped his forearm, warm from the sun, to reassure him. “Well, this is me letting go. I need a shower and I have brisket in the smoker that needs tending. It’s getting busier by the day with the season picking up—so busy I can’t smoke enough brisket and catfish to keep up.”

  He must have realized how edgy he was coming across, because his eyes instantly lightened and he said, “Yeah, I think you can go. But stay in town, would you?”

  “Darn,” I said over my shoulder with a teasing grin. “Guess that trip to Bora-Bora’s off then. I was so looking forward to a nice cocktail on the beach in my new bikini.”

  “You’d no sooner wear a bikini than you would a dress, Lemon Layne!” he called after me on a chuckle.

  That made me stop midway across the grass toward the back door of the house. I would wear a dress. I’d worn one to my fiancé Troy’s funeral.

  Sometimes, all it takes is something silly, like Justice’s dress comment, to remind me of a time in my life I wanted to forget. But to forget would be to forget the amazingly kind, incredibly smart man I was engaged to and had been in the process of planning a wedding with.

  Yet, even now, a couple of years later, the memory of that dress I’d chosen so long ago to bury the man I’d adored stole my breath before I straightened and focused on a getting a shower.

  And my laptop.

  Because, you know, there’s a crime I need to stick my nose into.

  But I’m just going to take a quick peek and then I’m staying out of it and letting the police do their jobs.

  I swear.

  * * * *

  I clicked around aimlessly on Abby’s website for her store, Natural Solutions, as I sat at the counter of the Smoke and Petrol with Jessica Fletcher next to me. I figured I’d just pass the time while we waited out the lull until the afternoon rush for lunch.

  Nothing more, honest.

  It can’t hurt, right? I mean, I did find her along with Cappie. The least I could do was learn a bit about her so when it came time to pay my respects to her family, I’d know a little about who she’d been as a person.

  As I got comfortable at the scarred counter covered with goodies from the local bakery and candy shop, the scent of freshly smoked brisket wafting to my nose, I kept half an eye on the door and the other half on Abby’s site.

  The site was full of sparkling apothecary bottles, recipes for home remedies for all manner of minor issues made from natural herbs and spices, and all sorts of herbs I’d never heard of.

  I’m not sure why I thought her website would help me see something I hadn’t seen at the crime scene, or jog my memory with a clue. I didn’t know Abby that well. We’d say hello in passing, smile and nod, but we sure didn’t move in the same circles.

  She was into the metaphysical and I was into science and facts. Now, that’s not to say I don’t believe an oregano leaf or whatever can’t heal what ails you, but I lean more toward a good physician and a prescription before I think about turning to an herbal remedy—despite how she’d helped Mom.

  I clicked on a tab labeled “week
ly meetings with other like-minded herbalists and homeopaths”. Seems Abby held meetings at her store once a week for those who sought help outside traditional western medicine.

  As I read the short paragraph on spiritual healings, Buddhism, astral projection, and paranormal happenings as points of conversation the group discussed, I found myself intrigued. Abby was clearly more than just a homeopath. She was into ghosts and all things having to do with the paranormal.

  Most especially, vampires…

  A chill coursed up my spine but I shook it off.

  Again, this was another something to consider, taking into account the way she’d been found. I mean, she did have marks on her neck and a spooky chalice near her body. Maybe she had a vampire club just like those zombie hunters had. I’d read only a little about people who believed in vampires and actually practiced some of their alleged habits.

  I looked to Jessica, dressed in one of her favorite purple boas and a matching tutu Mom had made her. “How do you feel about vampires, Jess? Misunderstood by society, glorified and worshipped by teens, or just plain evil?”

  Jess stopped eating her orange and cocked her tiny head at me, her tail twitching as she chirped her unintelligible answer before she popped another piece of fruit in her mouth.

  “What’cha doin’, Lemon?”

  My head popped up and my heart jumped in my chest. I hadn’t even heard the bells on the door ring, I was so immersed in Abby’s site. But suddenly my BFF was there, coming around the counter to see what I was up to.

  I prepared to close my laptop in guilt, but she held up a hand. “Don’t bother to try and hide what you’re doing. I already heard all about poor Abby Hoffer in the koi pond.”

  I winced. Here comes the lecture about minding my own P’s and Q’s. “I was just curious about her—”

  “No, no. Stop hiding.” Coco pulled off her summery floral scarf and tossed it on the counter in a cloud of vanilla perfume as she came to take a seat beside me, kicking off her wedge sandals. “There’s no stopping you from poking around. I’m not even going to try this time. All I ask is that you stay safe and keep anything you come upon a little quieter than the last time. Please. I like my brains on the inside.”