by Tess Lake
“Have you been talking with my aunts about this?” I asked.
“Down at the bakery; I go in there a lot. We get to talking,” Sheriff Hardy said a little too quickly.
I regarded him with my patented I-know-you’re-lying-to-me face, but Sheriff Hardy is a pro. He wasn’t going to crack anytime soon.
Our three fathers had all left our mothers within the same year, and Molly, Luce and I make it a point not to know anything about the moms’ respective love lives if we can help it. All three of them have only two settings: sneaking around or too-much-information. An innocent question about a strange car parked outside the house might lead to a conversation you really didn’t want to be in.
Aunt Ro and Sheriff Hardy?
I’ve known him forever. He is a good man through and through, but in my mind he was always the friendly police officer. I’d never imagined him out on a date, and fitting Aunt Ro into that scenario seemed very strange.
Imagine if they got married! We had a hard enough time keeping our witchiness suppressed and under the radar. I wonder how that conversation between them would go.
“They do make good baked goods,” I said finally. This wasn’t over, and I just couldn’t wait to tell Molly and Luce. Turning the romantic meddling powers of my mom and Aunt Freya on Ro might get them off our collective backs.
Sheriff Hardy stood up and cleared his throat. Standing up was a really effective way to end a meeting. I needed to remember that.
“Well, thanks for coming in and supplying the photographs. Let me know if your sources have any information they’d like to share.”
“I’ll do that,” I said and winked for some reason and then nearly combusted in embarrassment before scurrying out of there.
Chapter 9
I rushed back to my office. John was elsewhere, which was good because I needed to concentrate on writing my article about Holt Everand. I had the jump on Carter Wilkins by a day and I was a primary source too. I needed to take advantage of this.
I found an email waiting for me from the Swan Agency. It contained two press releases, one on the untimely death of Holt Everand and the other about Zero Bend, a volatile artist who had nothing to do with the recent graffiti in Harlot Bay.
Both of the press releases were pure advertising and I decided to use none of it. Fusion Swan and his agency were clearly experts at media manipulation.
With that in mind, I headed out into ye olde Internet for some research. I admit, being a reporter isn’t as cool as it used to be. Secret meetings in underground parking garages, midnight rendezvous, and frantic car chases had all been replaced with the reporter sitting in front of a computer, tapping away at a keyboard. You see it all the time in movies. They add a fast-paced thudding song behind it, but there is just no way to make searching on the Internet as thrilling as a secret meeting in an old barn.
Firstly, Zero Bend. Alongside clips of him butter carving, ice carving, and stone sculpting were a thousand gossip sites following his every move. Zero Bend breaks up with Saskia! No last name, just Saskia. She looked vaguely familiar. Zero Bend in Drunken Brawl! Zero Bend Throws Girlfriend Out Third-Story Window!
I read through that one. A few months back, at the Russian Sand Carver International, Zero had allegedly thrown his girlfriend (another model, one-word name: Issa) out the window. They were staying on the third floor. She landed in the swimming pool and refused to press charges.
I kept reading Zero Bend stories, and they all shared a common theme: violence and aggression. He was constantly fighting with paparazzi, starting bar brawls, smashing expensive vases, or being found drunk and asleep in a child’s treehouse. In all the articles he was called a genius, brilliant, and amazing . . . but also drunk, violent, and obsessed. He’d once beaten up a carving festival organizer for not chilling the butter correctly.
The Bad Boy of Sculpting indeed.
His rivalry with Holt Everand popped up here and there. The thing with a guy like Zero was that he had about a thousand feuds going at any time. Apparently, he and Holt had come to blows in Tokyo after Zero carved a statue of Holt’s girlfriend—her face on the body of a pig. Holt had punched Zero in the face and they’d both been disqualified.
So . . . Holt and Zero come to Harlot Bay to compete, and Zero goes to the butter storage warehouse to check that everything is up to his high standards. He finds Holt is already there, an argument breaks out, he clobbers Holt with a hammer . . .
It was plausible. Both he and Holt were known to be perfectionists, so it was reasonable that they’d visit the warehouse to confirm everything would be correct. The tying-to-the-chair bit, though? The blood-bruise handprint and the missing blood—not so clear if Zero Bend did that.
I spent the next hour diving into the world of butter carving, stone sculpting and associated art forms (sand sculpting, jelly slicing, ice carving). It was definitely one of those things you have no idea is so big until you get into it. The prize money for some of these competitions was a million dollars. The sculptors would compete for money and prestige, and the winners were often commissioned to create art for major companies and rich people. A Wall Street investment firm had paid Zero $800,000 for a sculpture titled Dark Coin.
Zero Bend was a rich, genius, violent, drunken artist—but was he a murderer?
It was a question for another day. I had work to do, and if I wasn’t careful I’d spend a thousand years online. I printed off the photo of the black hole where Holt Everand should have been and stuffed it in my bag. I wrote a puff piece about the Butter Festival opening, which included my photos of Zero Bend’s incredible ice carving, and published it. Then I wrote a quick headline—Holt Everand, Butter Festival Competitor, Found Dead in Harlot Bay Warehouse—and typed like the wind, whipping up an article. It took me maybe half an hour of writing, and then I spent another half hour checking my work. It’s the story of a one-woman online newspaper: I’m a journalist, photographer, editor, publisher, salesperson, and every other job too.
It wasn’t perfect, but what writing is? You do your best and move on.
I published it to the front page of the Harlot Bay Reader and called it a day.
Chapter 10
As my creaking car hauled itself up the driveway, I saw a truck with TRUER LANDSCAPING emblazoned down the side parked outside the house. Hmm. Okay, don’t leap to conclusions.
I drove past Aunt Freya and my mom talking to a young, well-built guy with a mop of shaggy blond hair. They both looked at me. Our eyes met and I knew instantly that he was William, the landscaper Luce had been casually observing down at the gardens.
The mothers were meddling. Maybe, maybe they really did need some landscaping done, but even if that were true, they could have chosen anyone in town. This couldn’t end well. I drove down to our end of the mansion and debated walking back to scout out what was happening. Then Adams appeared in the window, meowed at me and vanished.
Ah, the hiding game.
I opened the door and made a big deal of arriving home. Lots of stomping and loud noises. Sitting near my bedroom door was a laundry basket. Adams was hiding in it, crouched down with his pouncing face on.
“Adams? Are you here? I wonder where he is?” I said aloud, walking around.
I saw him huddle down, a look of glee on his furry face.
“I just can’t see him anywhere. It’s such a puzzle. He’s normally here.”
I walked closer to the basket, my hands on my hips, the essence of puzzlement. Adams twitched his ears.
He leapt out and grabbed my leg.
“Aha!”
“Argh!”
We roughhoused for a moment, me messing up his fur before I hauled him up and gave him a hug.
“I was hiding in the basket! You didn’t see me!”
“You came out of nowhere!”
“Like a ninja! Hiya!”
I carried him purring into the kitchen to get a drink of water. Sitting on the counter was a brochure from an online coffee machine business.
>
The mothers again, meddling.
I moved the brochure into the middle of the counter (hey, I need to have some fun too) and got myself a drink of water. It was cold and delicious and I felt myself relax as the chilled water hit my stomach.
Cold water and a purring cat. Ahh.
I sat down on the sofa, put Adams in my lap and decompressed. So much had happened today: finding Holt Everand dead, the opening of the Butter Festival, the police station with Carter Wilkins, and that creep, Fusion Swan. I looked down at Molly’s very aged, paint-spotted shoes. I’d have to buy myself some new shoes, because I doubted mine were coming back anytime soon. Even if they were, did I want murder blood on my shoes?
I remembered my bank balance and decided eh, it was just blood. What’s the big deal?
It wasn’t long before Molly and Luce arrived home.
Luce’s face was white like she’d seen a ghost and she was babbling.
“Him, that was. He was. Here? Why was he here? Those witches, what are. Witches up to?”
“Translation: Luce’s boy toy drove past us on the way up here,” Molly said.
“Freya and Mom were out front talking to him when I got home.”
“What? Why didn’t you go spy on them?” Luce demanded.
I pointed to the purring and very comfortable cat in my lap.
“Exhibit A,” I said, stroking his ears.
“Oh, those meddling witches,” Molly said. I suppressed a smile. She’d found the coffee machine brochure. A moment later she tossed it into the recycling container.
“You’re not even going to read it? What if you get questions?”
“We already ordered one. It’s being express-shipped, and it is not an amateur machine. We bought a commercial one.”
“Can you two forget coffee for a moment? This is an emergency! They invited William up here to snoop on him.”
“Did he appear to be eating any kind of magic-potion-infused baked goods on the way down?” I asked.
Luce’s eyes went wide.
“I don’t think so. Did you see him eating anything? Oh no, they’re going to make him eat a love donut, aren’t they?”
“Love donut? Isn’t that the name of a band?” Molly said, an evil grin on her face.
“If I go down, you’re coming with me,” Luce threatened.
Now it was time for Molly’s face to turn pale.
“Calm down, no need to get crazy. They are renovating, so maybe they’re getting landscaping done too. Even if they are snooping, we can keep it contained. We just need something to distract them. Is Aunt Cass up to anything?”
“Ooh, oh, pick me, pick me,” I said, putting my hand up.
“Yes, the journalist with the indestructible cat.”
“Okay, so I was talking with Sheriff Hardy today . . .”
I told them about his comment about this town definitely needs good business development and how Ro had said that at last night’s dinner, but they didn’t seem as convinced as I was that something was going on.
“I dunno . . . that’s a stretch. He does go to the bakery all the time. For all we know, he picked it up from her and repeated it,” Luce said.
“You weren’t there. I caught him in a lie when I asked if he’d been talking to my aunts. He went all stone-faced cop a second later, but for a moment I saw the truth.”
“The truth being . . . ?” Luce asked.
“The two of them are having a secret love affair!”
“Possibly,” Molly said thoughtfully. “Mom has been going out to do yoga more on weeknights. Maybe she is sneaking in a quick visit to Sheriff Hardy.”
“We should follow her tomorrow night,” Luce said immediately.
“What if she catches us? She’ll . . . I mean, she probably won’t curse us, but she’ll make us wish we’d been cursed because at least that ends at some point,” Molly said.
“Aunt Ro? Please, when she’s driving, her entire world becomes what is in front of the car. She won’t catch us, and what will she do anyway? Either we catch her going to yoga or we catch her seeing Sheriff Hardy, in which case she’ll beg us to keep it secret from nosy sisters one and two,” I said.
“They make a special batch of donuts for him,” Adams said from my lap.
“What do you mean a special batch?” Luce said.
“They put it aside for him every time he comes. It’s just for him.”
“Adams, think very carefully—did you ever see them putting anything magical into the donuts?” Luce asked.
Adams opened his eyes, and I recognized the sly look on his face. Here it comes—bribe time.
“I don’t remember . . . perhaps some tuna would help my memory.”
I swear this cat could have been one of those shifty informants in the past.
“Fine, I’ll get tuna for you.”
Luce went to the cupboard and opened a can, dumping it into a bowl. She put it on the counter. Adams jumped off my lap and up onto the counter, but he met Luce’s blocking hand when he went to take a bite.
“First tell me if they put anything in the donuts.”
“No,” Adams said.
She frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“They don’t put anything magical in his donuts. At least, I don’t think so. How am I supposed to know? I’m just a cat. Can I eat my tuna now?”
I saw Luce flirt with the idea of reneging on her tuna deal, so I shook my head at her and raised my eyebrows. It was a sneaky move on Adams’s part, but Luce was the one who’d made the bad deal. If she took the tuna away, I wouldn’t hear the end of it until tuna was supplied.
“Fine, eat, you little cheater,” she muttered and moved her hand. Adams happily complied.
I was filling Molly and Luce in on the extra information Sheriff Hardy had given me—missing blood replaced by some unknown fluid—when we suddenly heard a chattering of voices outside. The mothers pushed open the front door, moving at high speed. Aunt Cass came in after them and sat on the sofa.
“Harlow Torrent! You found a dead body and didn’t call me!”
Mom squeezed me in a backbreaking hug, then Freya and Ro. I’d be lucky if I could walk in the morning.
“Your cousin found a dead body and you didn’t tell us?” Freya said crossly to Luce and Molly, pointing her finger at them.
“It’s her news, not ours,” Molly said, shrugging.
The mothers turned back to me. It was like being under a heat lamp.
“I was just on assignment,” I said weakly.
“Just on assignment, she says. Magic forbid you were spotted by a murderer who’s coming to snuff you out. I’m putting up a protective enchantment,” Mom said.
She lifted her arms in the air, but I leapt forward to stop her.
“No, it’s okay. We don’t need that. The murder happened hours before I got there. No protective enchantment, please.”
Magic isn’t like digging a hole and then it’s done. It’s more like digging the same hole every day, and you get tired the longer it goes on. Cast a protection spell today at 7 p.m. and tomorrow at 7 p.m. a wave of exhaustion will wash over you. And the next day at 7 p.m. And the next until you let it go. Witches have died trying to keep too many spells going for too long.
I saw Molly and Luce glance at me. They knew I didn’t want to freak them out any more than they already were. I’d have to wait until I could get Aunt Cass alone to speak to her about the bruised neck, missing blood, and black hole aura problem.
Mom reluctantly put her arms down.
“You three stick together after dark,” Ro said.
“No sneaking off to see boys,” Freya added.
Molly opened her mouth to protest and then thought better of it. We didn’t want to open that particular Pandora’s box.
“They’re fine. Together they can handle anything,” Aunt Cass said from the sofa.
Six pairs of narrowing eyes focused on her. What was she up to?
“Well, they can. Don’t make s
uch a big deal about it. Bunch of wusses.”
Wusses?
Mom turned back around to me, but evidently Aunt Cass’s compliment-insult combo had knocked all the words out of her. She shook her head and recovered.
“Be safe. Don’t get involved. Well, you’re already involved, but don’t go crazy with it.”
One Torrent witch telling another Torrent witch not to go crazy with it? Sir Pot, I’d like you to meet Lord Kettle.
“How did you know I found the body?”
I swear I saw a flash of something on Aunt Ro’s face. Guilt?
“It’s all over town. Everyone knows,” Aunt Ro said.
Hmm.
The mothers took off after that. Aunt Cass stopped in the door and pointed her finger at the three of us.
“Get involved. There’s something hinky going on and you need to find out what it is.”
Hinky?
She vanished into the night as fast as our mothers had.
“Did you see my mother? She was totally lying about where she heard the news. I think she is having an affair with Sheriff Hardy,” Molly said.
“We definitely need to follow her tomorrow night. They want to mess with our love lives, we mess with theirs,” Luce said.
“What about my mom and Freya? Are they doing anything out of the ordinary?” I asked.
“Freya came back here a week ago in the middle of the day, and a man came to the house,” Adams said through a mouthful of tuna.
We immediately leapt on him, but in typical cat fashion he didn’t know anything else because he didn’t care about the comings and goings of humans.
“What about Mom? Do you know anything about her?”
“She made me get out of the pizza oven,” Adams said. He’d finished the tuna and moved across to the sofa for a complete bath.
I suddenly realized we’d let the thought of catching our mothers in various secret love affairs get the best of us. We had bigger fish to fry.
“I think Aunt Cass might know something about the murder. Or at least why Holt Everand didn’t show up in my photo. She was acting odd. Well, odder.”