by Tonya Kappes
“Thank you, Mac.” Madame Torres heaved like she had been suffocated. “I’ve been dying to get out of the bottom of her nasty bag all day long. The trash.” She shook her head. The water surrounding her hit the side of the glass ball like a tsunami.
“Seriously?” I put her down with a little more of a thump than normal, making her head bump to the top of the glass.
“Okay, ladies.” Mac slid Madame Torres over in front of him. “Please play back the scene Colton Lance saw this morning between June and Gwendolyn.”
Her head twisted in the water toward me. I nodded in approval; happy she did check with me first before she played out the scene. After all, she was mine.
Like a movie, Madame Torres played back. I had forgotten how Gwendolyn accused me of stealing the Village President position from Petunia. Petunia was visibly upset as Gwendolyn recalled how I had come to the village and was handed the job.
Colton and Mac both wrote down things on paper as the scene played out.
“I think she was really trying to take up for her cousin who had been hurt, but that doesn’t give good reason for me to kill her,” I spoke with confidence.
“At the scene, Petunia said Gwenie didn’t make it to the ceremony, but a few minutes before she rushed down to see where Gwenie went.” Colton flipped through his notebook. “You and Gwenie were getting ready to go into A Charming Cure, assuring her you’d be there in a minute. She also said Chandra was talking to you, so I need to go over to see her and get her take on it.”
“Yes. Chandra, Gwenie and I were standing there. I was told Gwenie had IBS.” I reiterated what I had learned. “Gwenie admitted her stomach was upset and I have a great family remedy for it.”
“I’m going to need the remedy.” Colton shoved a pencil and piece of paper in front of me.
I quickly wrote down the herbs I used and gave her.
“Nothing special.” I shrugged. “I was just trying to help.”
“That’s a crime?” Mac asked, sitting back in the chair and folding his hands in front of him.
“No. But I’d like to know what you two were discussing.” Colton leaned in, not letting Mac intimidate him.
“Can I?” I looked over at Mac.
He lifted his hand toward Colton, gesturing me to go on.
“She had been a bit nasty to me and I wanted her to like me.” I recalled the conversation. “She said I didn’t know her family dynamics and I needed to butt out. She also said she couldn’t wait until she got home and her village was nothing like ours. That was it. We left.”
“And?” Colton lifted a brow, clicked the small tape recorder in front of him and slid it toward the edge of the desk, near me.
“She asked me why I was being nice to her since she was so nasty to me and I told her I wanted to help. She told me to stay out of her family business because I didn’t know everything. I didn’t go into detail, but I told her we all had our own share of family issues.”
I stopped when tears came to my eyes. Mac gave me his sweaty handkerchief and I took it anyway. I wiped my tears and continued.
“Before we went into the shop, Chandra told me not to go. Ask her. She read something in Gwenie’s palm when they shook hands.” I wanted to make sure they were clear on the fact I didn’t do any funny business. “Plus Gwenie was mean to Izzy. Ask Izzy. She even said she wanted to strangle Gwenie. And,” I knew I was ratting out everyone, but I had to look out for me. “Raven even said she was mad because Gwenie said her tarts were too tart.”
“What was in the cure?” Colton asked as though he hadn’t hears a word I’d said about the others.
“Let’s see.” The best I could under the nervous circumstances I was in, I read my list I had just written down for him, “Slippery elm and aloe juice for inflammation. Chamomile tea leaves helps repair damage. I also told her to grab a Rosemary, peppermint, catnip, fennel, or green drink from Gerald on her way out of town in the morning because it was also good for colon health.” I threw my hands in the air. “See, nothing damaging. All good stuff.” I pushed the paper back toward him.
“And you never mixed anything up in the cauldron?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“The last thing I had made in my cauldron was for a little boy—a no more gossip potion and confidence potion in one I called Monsters Be Gone.” I shrugged. “In fact, I had cleaned my cauldron and replaced all the potions that had sold out today.”
“That’s interesting.” Colton leaned back in his chair tapping the butt end of his pen to his temple. “Because when I went in the burning shop to put it out,” he tapped his wand, “your cauldron was bubbling full.”
“No, it couldn’t have been,” I assured him.
He stood up and pulled a vial out of his pant’s pocket.
“I even took a sample.” He sat the small glass next to Madame Torres for me to get a good look.
The movie screen of today’s events floated away from Madame Torres and a skull and crossbones filled her entire crystal ball. It wasn’t the image that stuck my gut, it was the words floating in her ball that caught my breath.
Chapter Eleven
“June Heal, did you poison Ms. Gwendolyn Shrubwood?” Colton’s voice boomed out, his finger pointing at me.
“No!” My head shook side-to-side, protesting. “No!”
“Say nothing else, June,” Mac instructed me and shoved his chair back using his hand pushing off the desk to do it. “Are you arresting her?”
If Colton arrested me, I wouldn’t be able to leave my cottage.
Colton shook his head no.
“My client is innocent until proven guilty. She will be in Locust Grove at her old residence until further notice.”
Mac grabbed me. I scooped up Madame Torres and let Mac drag me out of the station.
“June,” Faith Mortimer stuck a tape recorder in my face as soon as we walked out of the station. “Do you have any comments about the fire in your cure shop today and the fact someone was found dead in your attic?”
“No, Faith.” I pushed her hand out of my face.
“Our readers would love to know!” She thrust the recorder in my face again. “The talk around town is that you killed Gwendolyn Shrubwood. Any comments?”
“No!” I screamed, furious to be considered a murderer. “Get out of my way,” I murmured through my gritted teeth.
“Hear yea, hear yea, good subscribers of the Whispering Falls Gazette,” I could hear Faith’s voice echoing all over the town in the night air.
Faith was in charge of our spiritual newspaper. Only spiritualists who subscribe for the paper could hear the news and news flashes delivered through the air. Tonight’s event was obviously a news flash and I was the center of it.
“It’s been unfortunate how one of our own, our leader, June Heal will be relocating her cure shop to Locust Grove until the storm blows over. When I went around asking local merchants their take on where June Heal killed Petunia’s cousin Gwendolyn Shrubwood, one local merchant quoted June Heal in saying ‘I’m dealing with her now.’ Her being Gwendolyn. And June continued to say how Gwendolyn had been nasty to everyone we love and maybe my little cure will bring relief to us all. Stay tuned to the Gazette to find out more about this ongoing murder investigation. Be sure to tell your family and friends to subscribe to the Whispering Falls Gazette. This issue was brought to you by A Charming Cure. Stop in today to get your . . .” Faith paused. “I guess you won’t be stopping in today.”
“Oh my God!” I fumed and stormed up the hill with Mac next to me. Madame Torres flopped around in the bottom of my bag that I’d strapped across my shoulder. “I did not kill her or give her any bad potion. Chandra knew that.”
“Chandra?” Mac asked, he huffed and puffed his round body to the porch of my cottage.
“Yes. She’s the one I told about giving Gwendolyn a potion to help everyone. Remember, it was to make her IBS feel better which in turn should make her mood better—not no pulse, dead better.” I o
pened the door hoping to find Mr. Prince Charming there.
He wasn’t.
“So,” I stepped inside my cozy home and shut the door. “Do I really have to go back to Locust Grove?”
“Yes.” Mac’s tone was definite. “I think it will be best until the Karima sisters do their autopsy and Petunia’s family leaves.” He looked out the kitchen window. “And fast if you don’t mind.”
I glanced out the window over his shoulder. Several lit torches dotted the night air, getting closer and closer to my home.
“What in the world?” My eyes squinted, trying to see into the darkness.
“Arrest June Heal!” the crowd screamed as they marched up the hill with Petunia leading the pack.
“I don’t need anything but this.” I grabbed my Magical Cures Book, passed down from my mother, off the coffee table along with my car keys. “Let’s go!”
Mac and I wasted no time getting into my 1988 two-toned green El Camino.
“Get her!” someone in the crowd yelled. They took off running toward the El Camino. With my foot pushed down, the tires squealed, throwing dust clouds up behind us. I didn’t bother looking back until we were safely out of Whispering Falls’s town limits.
Chapter Twelve
“I’ll be a son of a gun.” I pulled my car into the driveway of my childhood home in Locust Grove and there he sat.
Mr. Prince Charming. He knew it and I should’ve not worried about where he was. I knew he would show up sometime. Routinely I forgot he was my fairy-god familiar, not the other way around.
“Sometimes you have to trust the magical world to work itself out.” Mac reached over and patted my hand. “Just like your house. Primrose knew exactly what he was doing when he told you he was selling your house, when in fact, we didn’t. Everything is the same as you left it.”
Axelrod Primrose was the spiritualist realtor who was in charge of selling my house in Locust Grove when I moved to Whispering Falls.
“Now, we did rent it out, but they are gone and we put all your stuff back in the house.” Mac’s voice softened, “It was his last task.”
“He is missed.” I recalled the day I met Axelrod and how the whole transition to Whispering Falls was not only magical, but easy. “I still can’t believe he is dead.”
“Me either.” Mac took a deep breath; using his thick fingers he pushed his glasses up on his nose. “And I’m going to be right over there at my house if you need me.”
“I do need you.” I wasn’t going to lie. I was a marked woman and the little crowd with torches told me so. “I need you to figure out what happened to Gwenie. Why was she in my attic? How did she die?”
“You go in and rest.” He opened the door. “I’ll be over to visit later.”
“Thanks.” I sat in the Green Machine, the name I lovingly called my car, and watched Mac run through the herb garden between our houses.
A couple of years ago, I would have darted out of my little shed in the backyard and given Mac McGurtle a good cussing for traipsing through my herbs. Not today. My heart and soul felt better knowing he was just a few feet away.
I looked back at my charred shed in the side yard. The last time I was in there, I was concocting a homeopathic cure from Darla’s “recipe book”, which turned out to be the Magical Cures Book with all the life lessons I needed to know about. Needless to say, I mixed two herbs that didn’t agree with each other and boom! My shed went up in a small explosion. The walls and glass windows were still intact, but the roof was gone.
I grabbed my bag and the book and got out of the car. Mr. Prince Charming didn’t bother giving me a little fairy anything. His hind leg stuck straight up in the air and he cleaned his under carriage.
“You could’ve warned me you were here.” I stomped up the front steps of home.
I turned around and looked across the street. All my childhood memories of Oscar Park and his uncle came flooding back when I looked at his house and the big tree out front.
A smile crossed my face. His uncle might have killed my family, but the memories of Oscar and me were happy ones. Especially the times we sat under that tree, downing the Ding Dongs until we passed out from the sugar high. Darla was fit to be tied when she found out I was feasting on sugar and not the vegetables she wanted me to eat.
My childhood wasn’t magical like my life now. Darla worked her hinny off in order to put the stale bread and manager special foods from the grocery store on the table. The meat we cooked on the grill wasn’t bloody red, it was milky brown and a day expired. Darla cooked them charred to make sure E. coli wasn’t going to get us.
Still, it was my childhood and I didn’t know any different until my tenth birthday when Mr. Prince Charming showed up on the same step he was sitting on today.
“Let’s go.” I took a deep breath. I put my key in the door and hand on the door knob.
Mewl, Mr. Prince Charming darted in a figure eight around my ankles letting me know it was okay to go in.
I opened the door with a little push, letting the door fully open. The light flooded inside. Mr. Prince Charming jumped up on the old radiator that sat just inside the door, taking his post like he used to.
I gave him a little scratch on top of his head when I stepped through the door. He batted at my charm bracelet.
“Yes, I believe in you and keeping me safe.” My lips formed a thin line.
Though I really wanted to believe, I was afraid the signs were all pointing at me. I wished I could take back the day and my words. I wished I had listened to Chandra and gone up to the ceremony. I wished, I wished, I wished Gwenie was still alive.
She wasn’t.
And all the fingers pointed to me. Was Petunia still so mad at me, she had been planning to seek her revenge on me the day I was stepping down as the president?
Of course Petunia and I had a few words when she felt I had snatched the presidency right out from under her, but I had thought we had come to a mutual truce. Things had been going well. Her wedding was gorgeous. And Oscar asked me to marry him. Things couldn’t have been better.
“Whoa,” the door opened back up when I tried to close it. Oscar stood on the other side with his toe pushing the bottom of the door back open, a brown sack in his hand.
I didn’t have to ask or smell to know what was in it.
“I thought since we were here, we could eat like old times.” Oscar stepped into the house.
Meowwww. Mr. Prince Charming smacked the bag.
“Of course I got you an egg roll.” Oscar pulled the sack away.
Mr. Prince Charming jumped off the radiator and we followed Oscar down the hall and into the kitchen.
My eyes wandered over Oscar’s back end. His jeans fit in all the right places. He wore a black tee that wasn’t too tight or too loose. His biceps formed without him flexing, sending my emotions into overdrive. The last time we were in this house, our relationship was purely platonic. My, how things had changed.
“You know.” I touched his biceps. He put the food on the farm table and turned around. I ran my hands through his black hair and rested my hands on his shoulders. He put his hands on my waist and pulled me tight. “I couldn’t do this without you.”
He picked me up and carried me back to my bedroom. The small twin bed still had the same unicorn and rainbow comforter cover on it. Gently he eased me down onto the bed. His hands unbuttoned my jeans and lifted my shirt over my head. His fingers were icy cold, but his palm was fiery hot. I returned the favor, taking my time with every snap of his button-fly jeans. He stood up and pulled his black shirt over his head, exposing his washboard stomach. Aroused now, I tugged his hand and pulled him down; letting his hands explore the soft lines of my chest, waist and hips.
A slight gasp escaped my lips as our bodies moved together in an exquisite harmony. Neither of us said anything. We let our bodies do all the talking. One to the other. We knew what each other wanted.
All the troubles of the day melted away as we let the contentment and
peace flow between us.
“I love you, June.” Oscar snuggled his nose in the nape of my neck. His lips seared a path up and moved his mouth over mine, devouring its softness.
His kiss sent spirals of ecstasy through me, rendering me helpless against his masterful seduction.
Chapter Thirteen
Oscar’s hands moved gently up and down my back, melting away the day’s tension, though the events still nested front and center of my brain. I curled into the curve of his body, wrapping his arms around me.
“Thank you for being here,” I said, hugging his arms. “I was afraid you were going to stay in Whispering Falls getting the scoop on what was going on.”
“Colton and I feel it’s in our best interest for me to not be on the case at all.” His deep voice whispered in my ear. “He is a good detective. He will find out what really happened.”
“Mac said the same thing.” My stomach growled. “What on earth am I going to do all day? Here?”
“One sec.” Oscar jumped out of bed and stuck his finger out.
He pulled his jeans back on, leaving the buttons still unbuttoned. A smile crossed my face. I knew what was underneath those jeans and I couldn’t contain my giddiness.
He came back with the bag of Chinese food in his grip. He crawled back in bed.
“Here is something we haven’t ever done.” He took out the cartoons and flattened the sack. “Let’s eat.”
Mr. Prince Charming jumped up on the bed.
“Thank goodness you aren’t like a real cat.” I peeled off a piece of my egg roll and gave it to him.
Of course normal cats can’t eat people food, especially chocolate, but Mr. Prince Charming wasn’t any old normal cat.
“I have an idea.” Oscar stuffed his mouth with a piece of broccoli. “Why don’t we fix the shed and you make some cures and get your booth back at the flea market?”
“What?” A nervous laugh escaped me.
“You heard me. You loved going to the flea market. And it just so happened that on my way to the Chinese joint, I stopped by the flea market and they have your old booth space available.” He used the chopsticks to jam a few pieces of chicken in his mouth.