“She’s going to need some time to come to grips with what happened,” Amy said quietly.
“I know,” I replied. “Losing a family member is never easy.”
My heart went out to Sara. Whether or not the two deaths were related, I hoped the perpetrators were brought to justice sooner rather than later.
Chapter 14
The next day went by rather uneventfully, but that night was the funeral for Rosa Lynn. I had been to a few coven of Jupiter funerals at this point. Most of them, however, were for witches and wizards who had died of natural causes.
Most of the time when someone died in the paranormal world, a variety of paranormals showed up at the funeral. After all, most paranormals did have at least a few friends from different species. This time, however, I couldn’t help but notice that when we arrived at the Coven Gardens for the funeral, the only people in attendance were members of the coven. And even then, it looked like only about two thirds of the members had come; I imagined the others had conveniently planned appointments and previous engagements to coincide with this funeral.
As much as I hadn’t liked Rosa—and she seemed to have rubbed everybody the wrong way—I couldn’t help but feel a little bit bad for her.
Rosa’s sister Lily stood by herself near the lake, looking out onto the water. The entire mood of the funeral was one of sadness, and I knew most of it came from the knowledge that two of the coven’s witches had died in the last couple of days.
No one went to stand next to Lily, so I made my way over there. I felt bad for her.
“I’m sorry for your sister,” I said. “I know what it’s like to lose someone close to you, and it sucks.”
Lily looked at me sharply. “You’re the new witch, aren’t you?”
I nodded. “Tina. My parents in the human world died a couple of years ago, and I’m still not over it. It takes a long time before you start to feel remotely normally again.”
“I just feel so alone right now,” Lily said. “I know my sister didn’t have a lot of friends. I know she didn’t get along with most people, but she wasn’t inherently a bad person, you know? I just feel like nobody understands the pain I’m going through right now, and they all think that Rosa deserved what happened to her.”
“You’re not alone,” I said. “I didn’t really know your sister very well, but she didn’t deserve to die. For what it’s worth, I hope Chief Enforcer King finds the person who did this.”
Lily pressed her lips together. “I think you’re the only person in town who hopes for that,” she replied. “Most people seem to be happy to let the killer get away with it. Besides, now with that second murder, Chief Enforcer King is going to have her hands full, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Rosa’s murder gets pushed down the totem pole in favor of Diane’s.”
“I’m not sure that’s true, Lily,” I said. “Chief Enforcer King seems fair.”
“Oh, I’m sure she is. It’s just that having two murders to investigate instead of one automatically dilutes the attention she can give to my sister’s murder.”
“So you don’t think the two murders are related?”
“How could they be? I knew Rosa better than anyone. She wouldn’t have known that witch. Diane was studying to be an Assistant Healer, right? That wasn’t the sort of crowd that Rosa hung out with. And she was at least a decade older than Diane. They wouldn’t have known each other, I’m sure of that.”
A flash of inspiration suddenly hit me. “What about these people?” I asked, pulling out my phone and showing Lily the list of people who had been in the gym with Rosa. “Did your sister know any of them?”
“Leon,” Lily nodded, looking at the list. “He was her head of security. You ask me, it was a mistake to fire him, and I tried to convince her not to do it, but she insisted. Why are you asking so many questions? Did you hear about the reward I’ve offered? Chief Enforcer King doesn’t want me to make it public; she thinks it’s just going to be a gong show if I do.”
“The cinnamon bun that poisoned your sister came from The Witching Flour, which is a brand-new business my friend Ellie started,” I explained. “Since your sister’s death, the number of people coming to buy baked goods has dropped. A few of us decided that if we helped find Rosa’s killer, maybe then people wouldn’t be scared to buy Ellie’s baked goods anymore.”
“Oh. Well, I suppose any reason to have people trying to solve my sister’s murder is a good one,” Lily replied. “I don’t know why she fired Leon. It was a bad idea, though. I kept telling her she needed security for the estate. Honestly, I didn’t even think she needed security for herself personally. But I thought when she fired Leon someone would try and rob her, and if they happened to come by when she was in the house, well…”
“Can you think of anyone else who wanted her dead?”
“Ophelia Storm,” Lily said immediately. “But that’s the only person. Honestly, I’ve gone over it a thousand times in my head. It had to be her.”
“She didn’t have the opportunity. Did you know Kyle?”
“Rosa’s new boy toy, the one who had been dating Ophelia until he met Rosa?”
“Yeah, him.”
“I met him a couple of times. I wouldn’t say I knew him, though.”
“Did he seem to genuinely like your sister? Or do you think he was in it for the money?”
“It’s hard to say,” Lily replied, pressing her lips together. “Rosa did tend to attract guys more easily than she might have otherwise because of her money. I wasn’t always great at telling who was in it for her, and who simply wanted to take advantage of her. But from what I saw of Kyle, he seemed genuinely infatuated with her. To be fair, Rosa was quite pretty. And she could be very charming. I know a lot of people didn’t like her, but she did have her friends. Not everyone was after her just for the money.”
“What happens to it now?” I asked. “The money, I mean.”
“It all passes to me. It was always in a trust, and it’s very carefully governed. Even if Rosa had gotten married, her husband never would have had access to any of it.”
So that meant if Kyle had known that, it would have been pretty dumb of him to kill his meal ticket, I thought. There went his main motive for being the killer.
This was turning out to be quite the conundrum indeed. I wondered if maybe someone had a motive to kill Rosa that we hadn’t quite managed to uncover yet.
“Well, I do hope you find who did it. Or Chief Enforcer King. Frankly, I just want my sister’s killer found,” Lily said with a sigh. “She wasn’t as bad as everyone thought she was.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said softly before retreating. I did feel bad for Lily. As much as Rosa hadn’t exactly made a ton of friends here in town, Lily was her sister, and I knew all too well the pain of losing a family member. It definitely wasn’t an enjoyable feeling.
I found the others just as the funeral began.
When it was over, the four of us walked home.
“I spoke with Lily,” I said. “She can’t think of anyone that might have killed Rosa, apart from Ophelia and Leon, who we’ve already more or less ruled out.”
“What about Leon?” Ellie asked. “I mean, we’ve ruled him out, but he keeps popping up in this investigation.”
“Having met him, I’d be willing to bet he spends half his life at the gym, though. The guy was fit for a retired Enforcer,” I countered. “And we still don’t have a real motive for him. He just didn’t seem to take getting fired that personally.”
“Yeah, but having been an Enforcer for years, he would know what to say to avoid looking like a suspect if he was the killer,” Ellie countered.
“Fair enough,” I agreed. “So Leon remains on the top of our suspect list. Still, we don’t have anyone that sticks out as definitely being the killer.”
“What if it was random?” Amy asked. “I mean, there’s always the possibility it was someone else on that list who didn’t even know it was Rosa’s things, and just poisoned her
just because.”
“Oh, don’t say that. Between Rosa being killed and now Diane, I don’t want to think about there being someone completely insane out there,” Sara complained.
“I’m sorry, Sara,” I said, suddenly feeling awash with guilt as I realized how insensitive the conversation must have sounded.
“No, it’s ok,” she replied. “I’m just very sensitive to these things right now. The whole family is having a small get-together tomorrow, and so I’m going to go to that. We want to have a little family thing before the funeral on Wednesday.”
“Of course,” Ellie replied. “Listen, I also don’t want you to think that we’re ignoring Diane’s death.”
“Oh, by all means, please do,” Sara said. “I know Chief Enforcer King can handle it, and the fact is, as much as I hate to say it, Diane is dead. There’s nothing solving her murder will do to bring her back. However, solving Rosa’s murder can help my friends who are still here and alive, and I’d rather you solve that crime.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, and Sara nodded.
“Absolutely. As much as I grieve for Diana, and I do want her killer found, finding the other killer will help Ellie more, and that’s what I think our focus should be.”
I took Sara’s hand and squeezed. “Are you still going to be ok to compete on Tuesday? If not, I’m sure you could explain to Eli the situation and have an exception made, maybe have the competition pushed back.”
Sara shook her head. “No, I’m going to compete. I have to do it. I’m going to win for Diane.”
“Alright,” I said with a nod. “So we keep going. We focus on finding Rosa’s killer.”
Chapter 15
Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to find the person who had killed Rosa and bring them to justice, I was also fresh out of ideas. Leon might have been our main suspect, but how could we prove that he had poisoned the cinnamon bun? We had no way of doing so. He had the opportunity, and maybe a motive—although that part was debatable—but we definitely didn’t have any proof of wrongdoing.
If I knew what kind of poison had been used, maybe we could get some answers. After all, a poisonous potion would have meant creation by a witch or wizard. But a natural plant, on the other hand, would indicate possibly a shifter or another paranormal who didn’t have the ability to make magical potions.
That morning, Amy, Ellie, and I all ate breakfast together before Ellie and I went in to The Witching Flour for another day. Amy was working at coven headquarters, and we ate mostly in silence, more or less lost in our own thoughts. By the time we got to the bakery, though, I could tell Ellie’s mood had improved. The decent sales from the previous day must have helped.
“I was thinking if we get some time off around lunch I might leave and have a chat with Chief Enforcer King, if that’s alright with you,” I said to Ellie.
“Of course, why wouldn’t it be?” Ellie asked, and I laughed.
“Because you’re the boss?”
“Oh, yeah. I keep forgetting. Mostly because I’m not really paying you. Plus, I feel like you’re just a coworker. You’re one of my best friends. I’m not your boss. Even if I am. You know what I mean.”
“I do,” I said with another laugh. “But I still feel like I should run things past you.”
“Well, I appreciate it. But by all means, I think if you have an idea to help solve this case, you should absolutely go for it. That’s probably the most useful thing you can do for this business right now.”
I actually had a second idea on that front, but I wasn’t ready to tell Ellie about it yet. After all, it was just an inkling of an idea, and I didn’t know if it was going to go anywhere.
I pulled out my phone and began scanning listings on the local buy and sell page. I wanted to find a good-quality coffee machine that we could put into The Witching Flour. After all, I had had so many customers so far tell me that being able to serve coffee would make all the difference.
Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be anything decent nearby. I hoped I was going to find something sooner rather than later; I thought surprising Ellie with the coffee machine might be a great way to get her mind off of the troubles she was dealing with right now.
Sure enough, that morning we had fewer customers than the day before, and certainly nothing close to the number that came by on that first day. When the morning rush ended, I told Ellie I was going out, and she nodded.
“Let me know if you find out anything,” she said. “And if you actually find the killer, don’t go after them without me, please. I want a few minutes with them by myself before they get handed over to the authorities.”
“You got it,” I laughed, giving Ellie a wave on the way out. Lucy smiled at me; her apprehension from the few days immediately following Rosa’s poisoning seemed to have passed.
I made my way to the town hall, where I expected I would find Chief Enforcer King. However, the shifter working at the door informed me that she was at coven headquarters, speaking with some of the professors who worked with Diane.
I walked back out into the sunshine and a few minutes later was in front of the white building. I stepped in, a grin on my face, as I expected to see Amy. Instead, I was met with Estelle.
“What are you doing here?” I asked before my brain caught up with my mouth and I realized how rude that sounded.
Estelle frowned at me, her arms crossed. “This is my job, remember? Why shouldn’t I be here?”
“Sorry. I just thought Amy was working today, and you surprised me. That’s all.”
“No, Amy isn’t here. She’s not working until tomorrow.”
That was definitely strange; I could clearly remember Amy mentioning at breakfast that she was working today. So why wasn’t she here? Where was she?
The part of me that wanted to give my friend privacy fought with the part of me that was super curious about where she was. This was now the second time that I had expected to see Amy at work and she wasn’t there. So what was she doing?
Amy was basically Hermione. There was absolutely no way she was doing anything that could get her into trouble. That just wasn’t her, in any way at all. So what was she doing, and why did she feel the need to hide it from the rest of us?
“Hello?” Estelle said, waving her hand in front of my face and bringing me back down to earth. “Anybody home?”
“Sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “What was that?”
“I asked what it is you’re doing here.”
“I’m looking for Chief Enforcer King,” I replied. “I was told she was here. I need to speak to her.”
“She’s upstairs talking to some of the professors,” Estelle replied. “I don’t want you going up there and interrupting, but you’re welcome to wait down here until she comes back.”
“That’s fine,” I replied, taking a seat on a nearby bench. I pulled out my phone while I waited and continued to look through the listings. There were a few coffee machines for sale in Western Woods and a couple of the nearby towns, but none of them looked like they were any good. All of the food that Ellie baked was top quality, and I knew she wouldn’t accept anything less for her coffee. Not only was I going to have to find an excellent-quality coffee machine, but I was going to have to learn how to use it, too.
As I sat there scrolling through the few options available, it hit me. I was in the paranormal world. I know—by this point, I had lived here for quite a while. But after spending the first quarter century of my life in the human world, it was going to take me a little bit of time to get used to life here. Including the fact that portals existed, and there was no reason why I shouldn’t expand my search for a coffee machine to the entire paranormal world.
I took off the filter and expanded my search to cover the whole world, and instead of a half dozen sub-par options, I suddenly had over a hundred listings to look at, and some of the machines looked amazing.
In fact, I was so taken in scrolling through the new options that I almost didn’t notice Chief En
forcer King coming down the stairs and heading toward the exit.
“Chief Enforcer,” I called out after her, and she turned.
“Tina,” she said to me with a smile. “What can I do for you?”
The two of us walked out into the sun together, and I took a deep breath. I was fairly certain I was going to get in trouble for this, but I absolutely needed to know. After all, we were completely stuck, and I was desperate for information that might help us find Rosa’s killer.
“I was hoping you could tell me what kind of poison killed Rosa,” I said, deciding that getting straight to the point was probably the best way to go about things. Chief Enforcer King stopped and gave me a hard look.
“I thought you witches were going to stay out of this.”
“So did I, but the thing is, nobody is coming to The Witching Flour anymore,” I admitted. “A ton of people in town seem to think that they are risking their lives by doing so. I know that you’re doing a great job trying to find the killer, but if we can help in any way, then isn’t that better? If the killer is found, then people will start going back to The Witching Flour, since this time it won’t be an employee who is killing people.”
Chief Enforcer King sighed. “Do you know how terrible a precedent it will set if I’m caught giving case information to a civilian witch?”
“Who else needs to know?” I said with a daring smile. “Look, I’m not trying to steal your thunder or be a vigilante here. I know you’re worried about our safety when we do this, but the thing is, I have no intention of actually confronting anyone. If we manage to solve the case—and I’m not saying we’re better detectives than you, but we only have one murder to focus on right now, while you have two—then we will absolutely come to you with everything we have and let you take care of it.”
“Yes, I don’t want there to be another magic fight in the middle of the Coven Gardens between you four and a murderer.”
I nodded profusely. “I’m one hundred percent with you there. I promise I’m only going looking for information, and I’m being careful about it. But I’m out of leads, and I was hoping that if I knew what kind of poison was used to kill Rosa, then that could get me back on track.”
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