Wedding Spells

by Morgana Best

  “I believe I do,” Ruprecht said, standing up, stretching his back, and then sitting down again. “I believe they think Alder intended to murder his aunt and then you and he would fly away to a country that has no extradition agreement with Australia.”

  The lawyer nodded. “That’s exactly what they think.”

  “And so they believe Alder is a flight risk?” Ruprecht asked him.

  Mr Giggleswick nodded again and then said, “They escorted Alder back to his apartment last night and asked him to surrender his passport, but he said he couldn’t find it. They of course believe he has hidden his passport and that he is indeed a flight risk.”

  “We were going on our honeymoon,” I said. “The honeymoon was a surprise. So that’s why Alder had tickets. There’s nothing suspicious about it at all.” I thought for a moment. “Granted, it is strange that the tickets were one way. Perhaps he intended we would go somewhere else and he hadn’t decided yet. Now I know why the police gave me the third degree about our honeymoon destination.”

  The lawyer and Ruprecht exchanged glances. “Do you know anything of Burkino Faso?” Ruprecht asked me.

  I shook my head. “I’ve never heard of it before. Is it a seaside location somewhere? Maybe in the Maldives or perhaps in the Caribbean?”

  Ruprecht bit his lip. “To the contrary, it is in west Africa. It is a landlocked country and one of the poorest countries in the world. It’s not a place someone would go on a honeymoon by any means.”

  “More to the point, it’s one of the countries which has no extradition agreement with Australia,” Mr Giggleswick said. “That is the one remarkable thing about Burkina Faso. It is hardly a honeymoon destination.”

  This was all getting too much for me. “What does Alder have to say about it?”

  “He denied he bought tickets to Burkino Faso and advised me it was not your honeymoon destination at all.” He shot me a look, and then added, “I’m under strict instructions not to tell you or anyone your honeymoon destination, but your husband said he did not buy those tickets. He said someone is trying to frame him.”

  “That is completely obvious,” I said with fervour. “Someone planted those tickets and removed Alder’s passport and put that bottle of Thall-rat in his apartment.” I paused for breath. “It had to be someone at the wedding. The murderer must have slipped that syringe and the little bottle of poison into Alder’s coat pocket.”

  “We actually don’t know what was in that bottle yet,” the lawyer said, “but it stands to reason it was the poison.”

  “But surely the magistrate and the prosecutor wouldn’t think Alder would be silly enough to have all that evidence lying around if he really did kill his aunt?” I asked him.

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry to tell you that most criminals are stupid. At least, the ones who get caught usually are. You’d be surprised what criminals do. It leaves me shaking my head time and time again. I’m afraid I have to be blunt. This is not looking good for your husband, not at all.”

  Something else occurred to me. “You do think he’ll get out on bail, don’t you?”

  The lawyer looked inside his manila folder before looking up at me. “I have to inform you that the prosecutor is opposing bail and saying Alder is a flight risk.”

  Ruprecht stood up abruptly, the momentum sending his chair flying backwards. “Why, that’s preposterous!”

  Mr Giggleswick appeared unperturbed. “Yes indeed, he is claiming Alder is a flight risk. You have to admit, it doesn’t look good, two one-way tickets to a country without extradition laws to Australia, and Alder purportedly unable to find his passport and therefore unable to surrender it. Everything adds up to a flight risk, even more so with a less than lenient magistrate. I would be surprised if bail would be granted.”

  I dug my fingernails into my palm in an attempt to stop the tears that were threatening to fall. “What are we going to do?” I asked him.

  “I will do my very best to see that your husband is granted bail, but I don’t want you to get your hopes up. I have to tell you, it doesn’t look good.”

  It was nearly lunchtime before Alder appeared, and Ruprecht had moved his car twice in that time. Alder and I made eye contact, and I could tell he was putting on a confident exterior for my sake. After all the build up, it was over quickly. I didn’t understand exactly all the legalese to do with a Section 40, only that the prosecutor applied for a stay of the magistrate’s decision to grant bail for a serious offence. Ruprecht explained to me that while the stay operated, Alder was to remain in custody.

  Despite Mr Giggleswick speaking eloquently on Alder’s behalf, and outlining how the evidence was circumstantial, Ruprecht told me the magistrate had no option but to deny bail considering the prosecutor had applied for a stay.

  All too soon, my new husband was led out of my sight. “What will we do?” I whispered to Ruprecht.

  “We shall have to find out who is behind all this,” Ruprecht said with firm resolve. “It is now our only recourse.”

  “Are we going to wait to speak to Alder’s lawyer?” I asked him.

  He shook his head. “No, let’s get back to your shop. I believe Ridgewell has a few more cases in court this afternoon. I’ll speak with him on the phone later, but for now, we have to form a plan of action.”

  When I got back to the shop, no one asked me any questions, much to my relief. Ruprecht had called them on our way back to his car.

  Thyme shot me a wide smile that looked entirely fake. “Business has been good this morning.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “Thanks for helping out in the shop, Mint.”

  “It was no trouble at all,” she said. “I was going to help while you were on your honeymoon, so it makes no difference to me. I’m meeting Chris for lunch, and I’ll see what information I can get out of him. Don’t you worry, Amelia. We’re going to get to the bottom of this and Alder will be out in no time—you’ll see.”

  I shot her a weak smile. This was all so surreal. I had gone from being on a high, married to the man of my dreams, and now that man was in jail, falsely accused of a crime. What’s more, he had been set up. Anger rose within me at the thought. “We won’t let them get away with this!”

  Everyone stared at me in shock. I realised I had been yelling.

  “That’s right. We won’t,” Camino said. “Let’s figure out what we should do before the next onslaught of customers.”

  Ruprecht tapped his chin. “Let’s look at what we do know. We know that someone slipped the poison and the syringe into Alder’s coat. We know that someone gained access to Alder’s apartment. Now let’s take one thing at a time. Who had access to Alder’s suit?”

  I tried hard to think, but the harder I tried, the more my mind went blank. “I didn’t see him before the wedding, and his suit would have been in his house, but I figure he would have noticed a syringe and a vial in his pocket if it had been there for long.”

  Ruprecht disagreed with a small shake of his head. “Not necessarily. It was quite a small disposable syringe and a small vial. Perhaps he was so consumed with the wedding that he didn’t notice.”

  “Well, either someone put it in at his house, which narrows the options, or more likely, someone put it in before or after the wedding service or just before the reception,” I said.

  “I agree with Amelia,” Camino said. “My money’s on someone putting it in before the reception. The murderer wouldn’t want Alder to find it, so they would have planted it there just before they murdered his aunt.”

  There was a general murmur of agreement. “Now who would have had access to Alder’s house?” Ruprecht asked us.

  “It’s like I told the police when they questioned me last night. Perhaps his aunt let someone in. Someone could have come to the door posing as a technician. And as I also said to the police, we will never know because we can’t ask her.”

  “Not unless we conduct a séance and summon her spirit,” Camino said.

  I looked at
her, surprised. “You can do that?”

  She shook her head. “No. I was speaking hypothetically.”

  I wrung my hands. “It’s going to be difficult to find out who accessed Alder’s house if Bertha was the only witness. Still, the murderer was taking a risk that she didn’t mention it to Alder.”

  “Do we know she didn’t mention it to Alder?” I said. “Ruprecht, could you ask the lawyer to ask him?”

  “Good idea.” Ruprecht took what looked like an ancient piece of parchment from his pocket and scribbled on it.

  “Still, the person could have been in disguise, and if Bertha was the only witness, once again she’s not here to describe whoever it was,” I pointed out. “We have a better hope of figuring out who slipped the poison into Alder’s pocket. Who was close enough to him at the wedding?” As soon as I said it, I groaned. “Everyone hugged him! Anyone could have slipped it into his pocket.”

  “There’s one good thing—it had to be someone who was actually present at the wedding,” Thyme said.

  “And there’s the other matter that it was injected into her hand where the police would readily see it,” Ruprecht said. “Either the murderer was in a hurry or wanted the police to find it, and if the latter, then it seems that Alder is indeed the target.”

  I exhaled slowly. “This is doing my head in. Where do we go from here?”

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Ruprecht said.

  We all said “No” in unison.

  “We have to find who had a grudge against Bertha Bunyons. We’ll make a list of anyone with a motive to murder her. She used to stay in this town part time. We will uncover anyone with a grudge against her and crosscheck those against the wedding guests.”

  Camino interrupted him. “We can talk about it tonight. Amelia, we’re all having a sleepover at Ruprecht’s so we can discuss the case.”

  “That sounds good.” I figured it would take my mind off things. I dreaded being alone at this point as I could not stop my thoughts overwhelming me.

  Camino smiled at me. “And I have a surprise for you.”

  Chapter 13

  The surprise turned out to be that we were to camp in Ruprecht’s living room, rather than sleep in one of his bedrooms. And what’s more, we were all to be dressed in Camino’s sleeping bag onesie inventions and sleep around a mock campfire. It was a surprise, all right, but not a good one. Still, I suppose it was better than being alone, and Ruprecht’s house was always comforting.

  After I got dressed in the bizarre and bulky onesie, I staggered into the living room. The others were sitting around a table in the centre of which were numerous red pillar candles, all lit. “This is to represent a campfire,” Camino said. “We’re all going to sleep on the floor.”

  “On mattresses?” I asked hopefully.

  “No.”

  “Air beds?”

  “No.” Camino shook her head vigorously. “We’re all sleeping on the floor, because I’ve made these onesies to be so comfortable that no air beds are necessary.”

  “This is certainly well-padded,” I remarked as I waddled over to take my seat at the table. Ruprecht, Thyme, and Mint were all there, all resembling hot air balloons. “Dawson isn’t joining us,” Camino informed me. “It’s a girls’ night in.”

  Ruprecht’s eye twitched. “But I’m here.”

  Camino chuckled. “You don’t count.”

  Ruprecht at first looked puzzled, and then offended. Camino pushed on. “I’ve decided we should all have the food that people eat when they’re camping.”

  I shuddered at the thought. “Potatoes wrapped in foil and thrown into embers?” I guessed. “Vegemite sandwiches? Canned baked beans?”

  Camino looked at me as though I were mad. “Of course not. Pizza. I’ve already ordered it. Doesn’t everyone order pizza when they’re camping?”

  I exchanged glances with Thyme. Still, no one wanted to set Camino straight, because pizza was a better option than burnt potatoes or baked beans on toast.

  “Pizza sounds good,” I said. “And when people are camping, they have to drink a lot of wine, to put up with the conditions.”

  Ruprecht needed no further encouragement. “I’ll fetch the wine from my cellar.” He waddled from the room.

  “I’ve sewn pockets for wine bottles onto the sides of the onesies,” Camino called after him. “I’ve thought of everything.”

  I rested my hand on the table and then let out a shriek. I jumped backwards. I was surprised I could move so fast in my well-padded onesie. “Spider!” I screeched, pointing to the table.

  Camino chuckled. “It’s a fake one, Amelia. I also have some plastic deadly snakes scattered around the room.”

  “Why on earth would you do such a thing?” I asked in disbelief.

  “Because we’re pretending to be camping,” Camino said happily. “I wanted to make it as real as possible, so I’ve put spiders and snakes around. You don’t need to worry—they’re all fake.”

  I rubbed my forehead. There was simply no response.

  Ruprecht returned with a bottle of wine and poured everyone a glass. “Now, we have no time to waste! The police searched my garden shed today.”

  “They did?” I said. “What on earth for?”

  “For Thall-rat, of course,” Ruprecht said. “I suppose so, anyway.”

  I was puzzled. “They already found a bottle of it in Alder’s apartment.”

  Ruprecht shrugged. “I suppose they’re just covering their bases. It’s a good sign anyway—it means they are looking at people other than Alder as suspects.”

  “Chris is behind that,” Mint piped up. “Don’t quote me, but he knows it wasn’t Alder. He’s looking at other suspects, and he’s also looking into Bertha’s past, just in case it turns up any clues.”

  The wave of relief that hit me was so strong I thought I might cry. Still, I had done enough crying lately so thought I should do my best to keep it together.

  “Now to the suspects,” Ruprecht continued. “Let’s make a list of everyone who had a grudge against the victim. We know Prudence Pringle, Amelia’s wedding planner, did.”

  “That’s news to me,” I said. “What was the grudge?”

  Ruprecht looked off into the distance, which in this case was the far wall. “About ten or so years ago, Prudence was engaged to a delightful young man. They both seemed very much in love. Bertha caused trouble and broke them up. I assume she knew Prudence was a witch, and as we know, that didn’t go down well with Bertha.”

  “How did she break them up?” Thyme asked.

  It was Camino who answered. “No one knew. We just know that her boyfriend left town abruptly and Prudence never saw him again.”

  “We will need to find out more,” Ruprecht said, “but that’s a good lead for now. The other person with a grudge is Damon Stark and his motive is quite a solid one. I happen to know his story as he often buys antique pieces from me.”

  “What did Bertha do to him?” I asked. Bertha sure had been busy.

  “It wasn’t to him but to his mother,” Ruprecht explained. “His mother owned a restaurant. This is going back years ago, mind you. Her restaurant did very well. One day, the Health Department turned up unannounced and found an abundance of cockroaches and dead rats in the kitchen. It was early one Sunday morning. They shut her down, and her reputation never recovered. She ended up leaving town over it. Damon was a teenager at the time, and stayed on here to finish school and then ended up staying in Bayberry Creek. He’s still very close to his mother. He talks about her all the time. She’s never opened a restaurant again, and I’m sure he blames Bertha for that.”

  “So are you saying Bertha called the Health Department?”

  Ruprecht nodded. “Precisely.”

  “But does anyone know that she did for certain?” I asked him.

  “Yes, she openly gloated about it.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “What a terrible person. What was her grudge against Damon’s mother?”

&n
bsp; “Same as the others, I assume,” Ruprecht said. “She knew Damon’s mother was a practising witch.”

  I took a moment to process the information. “So Bertha really was a witch hunter, although Alder says she wasn’t.”

  Ruprecht shook his head. “No, not technically a witch hunter, but she was certainly heading in that direction, causing trouble for every witch she met.”

  “You’re forgetting Yarrow Larkspur,” Mint said.

  Ruprecht waved one finger at her. “I haven’t forgotten him, Mint. I just haven’t got around to telling Amelia about him yet.”

  “But I know about his grudge,” I said. “Bertha smashed his camera a week ago.”

  “Precisely.” Ruprecht nodded slowly. “Yet what you don’t know yet is his criminal record.” He held up one finger to forestall me. “Yes, you are already aware he has a criminal record for violence, but I will go into detail, so we will all be appraised of the facts. Years ago, before he was imprisoned, he was known only by the one name, ‘Bear.’ Someone reversed into his car by accident, and he gave them a thorough beating. Then, the very day he got out of prison, he assaulted a passer-by for wearing a Geelong Cats scarf.”

  Thyme frowned. “I really don’t understand. Are we talking football?”

  “Yes, AFL or Aussie Rules to the uninformed,” Ruprecht said. “Bear was a Hawthorn supporter. He went straight back to prison for that, but while ensconced, found the Wicca path. After he was released, he was a peaceful, lovely person, and as far as we know he still is. These days he doesn’t follow football at all.”

  “I wonder if it’s all a cover?” Thyme said.

  “He’s been out of prison for years,” Ruprecht pointed out. “It seems rather a stretch that he would pretend to be Wiccan simply to lie in wait for Bertha, and we don’t know that she did anything to him in the past. We only know she smashed his camera recently.”

  “Oh yes, how silly of me.” Thyme slapped herself on the side of the head. “Well, perhaps his old ways came out when Bertha smashed his camera. I believe it was an expensive camera.”