Murder At The Museum: A Witch Cozy Mystery (A Bluebell Knopps Witch Cozy Mystery Book 4)

by Nancy McGovern

Bluebell turned - the voice was familiar - and she wasn’t surprised to find Sandra Clark, the mayor’s wife, trudging next to her like a toddler forced on a long hike.

  “I skipped my morning appointments over this,” Sandra said. “It’s obvious that Rebecca was involved in fishy business and ran away. Wouldn’t surprise me if Barry was involved too.”

  Much as she loathed the woman’s whiny attitude, Bluebell decided that now was a good time to get information out of her. Sandra would be generous with gossip, she was sure. “You’ve known her long? Rebecca I mean?”

  “Oh, she came into town about twenty years ago. Was hired as the arts teacher in our high school. I was working there too, you know. I taught Math. A good subject. A useful subject, unlike Art.”

  “Right,” Bluebell said. “So much better for a kid’s career.”

  “Exactly. But Rebecca never agreed. She always spouted some nonsense about how Art creates more wholesome kids. She argued against funding cuts all the time, even when it made more sense to use those funds for my… for the kid’s math classes.”

  “So you disliked her right from the start?” Bluebell asked.

  “Oh I did, definitely,” Sandra said. “The woman was a little too self centered, and she liked all the attention she got from the boys.”

  Bluebell winced. It was hard to ignore Sandra’s caustic tone, and the jealousy in her voice. “She never got better, did she? Surrounded herself with men. Barry, KD, Greg, she lapped up attention. Well, we’ll see what happens next, but I’m sure it’s not going to be good for her.”

  Bluebell had to contain herself from smacking Sandra across the face. The woman was unbearably rude. Sadly, she’d met people like her before, those who were so extremely jealous of their better natured colleagues, that they’d go out of their way to mistake kindness for attention seeking.

  “But I never thought she’d be so spiteful as to buy my ancestral property and make it into that horrible museum,” Sandra said angrily. “That’s when I knew she was obsessed with me. Rebecca’s unhinged, I tell you.”

  “Right.” Bluebell distanced herself, and moved away. The spite in Sandra’s voice was off-putting.

  She recognized Martine, the cook from Jamie’s diner, and decided to talk to her instead.

  “Martine. Find anything?” Bluebell asked.

  “Oh.” Martine fumbled awkwardly with her words. “No. Nothing. This is terrible, isn’t it? Poor Rebecca.”

  “Do you know Rebecca well?”

  “Well, she was my art teacher in high school,” Martine said. “That was ten years ago, though. When she started her museum, KD and I both spent time helping her in the construction phase. We’re both handy like that. I always wanted to spend more time with her… but life has a way of making us too busy. It’s funny because I live on the same street as the museum, and I haven’t visited it in years.” Martine sounded sad. “I really hope she’s okay.”

  “You get up pretty early, don’t you?” Bluebell asked. “As cook, I mean.”

  “5am, most days.” Martine nodded. “The baking needs to be done before the diner opens for business.”

  “So when you got up today, did you see anything unusual? Anyone on the roads or... anything?”

  “No. Well.” Martine frowned. “I don’t think so.”

  “What do you mean?” Bluebell asked.

  “Well, I finish my baking at home and head to the diner around 8am,” Martine said. “Today, I didn’t think much about it, but I saw someone entering the museum around then. It must have been Greg, right? It was too far away, and he was wearing a weird plastic poncho with the hood up. I remember thinking it was funny that he was wearing a poncho because it wasn’t raining.”

  Bluebell felt her skin crawl. 8am? She’d gotten up at 7.30 that morning, so she had just left the museum, and immediately after a man had entered it. As far as Bluebell knew, the police had found no plastic poncho near Greg, which meant that it wasn’t the victim Martine had seen.

  “Are you sure it was a man?” Bluebell asked.

  “I mean… I guess,” Martine said uncertainly. “I just saw it out of the corner of my eye, you know? I suppose it could be a woman too but I didn’t think much about it. I just saw someone enter, and shut the door behind them.”

  “What color was the poncho?” Bluebell asked.

  “Black,” Martine said. “Just plastic-y and black. But it must have been Greg I saw, right?”

  “I think you need to tell KD what you saw,” Bluebell said. “The police should know.”

  “We found something!” an excited voice cried out. “Hey, everyone, we found something here!”

  Bluebell and Martine ran over to where the man was shouting. It was Jamie, the owner of the diner. He was standing by the bushes, his eyes wide, a trembling hand pointing at something dark.

  Martine gasped. “It can’t be…”

  Bluebell moved quickly, edging her way through the crowd, dragging Martine with her. As she approached Jamie, he gave her a solemn nod. “I think we just found the murder weapon,” he said. With a stick, he poked at the black plastic that he’d found. Wrapped in its folds, were a blood stained knife, and a pair of smashed glasses.

  “Those are Rebecca’s glasses,” Martine said. “I’d recognize them anywhere, no doubt about it. Trendy thick black frame and all.”

  “The knife is unusual too, isn’t it?” Bluebell said. It was small, but clearly deadly, a folding knife with a walnut handle.

  “The kind I’ve seen bikers use in old fashioned films,” Martine said. Then she put a hand over her mouth.

  “We need to get KD here as fast as possible,” Jamie said grimly. “He has to see this.”

  “He’s here now,” someone in the crowd called out. “I called him as soon as you shouted.”

  “Right,” Bluebell said. “Make sure nobody touches the knife. There may be fingerprints on it.”

  “There’s no need for that,” Jamie said. “There are initials on it.”

  Bluebell knelt down to look closer, and indeed, there was a gold engraving on the handle of the knife. BB. Barry Brentwood? What Martine had just said suddenly made sense, a biker’s knife. Barry had said he was an ex-biker, wasn’t he?

  So that was it, then? Barry had killed Greg, perhaps out of jealousy? But what of Rebecca? Had he murdered her somehow? Hidden the body some place? With a start, Bluebell realized that it wasn’t only the knife that was important, the material it was wrapped up in was worth noting too. Black. Plastic-y. This was the poncho Martine had seen!

  Barry was shoving his way through the crowd now, looking alarmed. “You found a knife?” He was asking, his voice strained. “A knife?”

  Jamie stepped in front of him, refusing to let him go any farther. “Barry, this is best left to the police, all right? KD’s going to be here any minute now…” He enveloped Barry in a bear hug of sorts.

  “I need to see it!” Barry yelled. “I need to…” He moved his head this way and that, trying to get around Jamie, then suddenly went limp in Jamie’s arms. “They are hers. The glasses, they’re her glasses!”

  “Barry, come on, man.” Jamie bodily moved him away.

  The crowd parted almost magically as KD, and Deputy Daniels made their way towards the bushes. KD had a very grim look on his face. He turned a little pale as he glanced at the knife and the smashed glasses. With a deep breath, he turned to Barry, and shook his head. “How could you?” he said.

  “KD, what are you talking about?”

  “I’ve seen that knife plenty of times before,” KD said. “So has everyone in town. You had a habit of taking it out and stirring your glasses with it, just to be cool.”

  “I… I lost it. A week ago, I lost it. I didn’t think much of it because I lose things all the time.”

  “Barry, Bartholomew Brentwood, you are under arrest for murder,” KD said, turning him around and slapping handcuffs on him. “Anything you say can and will be used—”

  “I didn’t do it!” B
arry said, his voice turning to a high scream. His desperate eyes looked from one person to another for support, yet all eyes turned away from him. Finally, his eyes met Bluebell’s, and he saw something there - faith, perhaps, in his innocence. “Bluebell, please help me,” he said desperately. “Rebecca needs us. Please!”

  Bluebell didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t allowed herself to think of it until now, but the emotions within her wouldn’t be held back any more. Just yesterday, this town had been peaceful. Now, the peace had been shattered, right after she’d arrived. Rebecca’s prophecy had done her in. Somewhere, deep inside, Bluebell knew that her arrival had somehow kicked off a chain reaction.

  “Whatever force is working through you is destiny, and I know enough of destiny to believe that if you try to circumvent it, you will only make things worse,” Rebecca had said yesterday.

  Well, if this was her destiny, it was time Bluebell embraced it, she decided. Rebecca had said that it was her duty to find out the predators that lurked in the shadows of a seemingly normal world. Bluebell had to find out who’d committed this murder, and why.

  *****

  Chapter 8

  Barry Brentwood, Biker

  So Barry was in jail, and Rebecca’s body was still missing. Bluebell sighed, wondering how to make sense of it all. She wanted to go to a quiet room and think, but KD had informed her that since the murder took place in the attic of the museum, they had no choice but to seal it off. This meant that Bluebell’s knapsack, and all her clothes, had been confiscated as evidence. All she had on her was a purse with some mints, a few dollars, and her ID. It was getting dark, and Bluebell was wondering where she could find a motel, when Martine, who was at the police station with her, came to the rescue.

  “You can come stay with me for a couple of days,” Martine said to her, sounding uncertain. “That is, if you want to. I totally understand if you’d rather go to a motel. My place is quite tiny and I could only offer you the couch.”

  “It’s perfect,” Bluebell said. “Thank you so much, Martine.”

  “Right,” KD said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Martine’s a fantastic cook and a great roommate. You couldn’t do better.”

  “Thanks, KD.” Martine smiled. “But no compliments needed.”

  “I know, I know. Flattery won’t get me free food.” KD sighed. He ran a hand through his hair. “We’ve been grilling Barry for six hours now, and he’s adamant that he lost the knife a week ago. But… well, forensics are against him. The blood on the knife is Greg’s, and the fingerprints are Barry’s. It’s pretty open and shut. Man, I never thought this could happen.”

  “Everyone in town is acting like they aren’t surprised,” Martine said. “They’re all talking about how Barry was a biker and got into quite a few bar fights back in the day. As if that matters! After Rebecca entered his life, Barry was a changed man.”

  “So you don’t think he did it either?” Bluebell asked.

  “I’m telling you, there’s no chance he did,” Martine said. “Barry loved her. He would never harm her.”

  “Unless of course…” KD sighed.

  “Unless what, KD?”

  “It’s possible, isn’t it, that Rebecca had an affair with Greg? Barry could have gotten jealous and killed them both.” He looked uncomfortable as he said it, but Bluebell could tell that he meant what he said.

  Martine stared at him as if he was mad. “You can’t be serious. Rebecca wasn’t the kind to—”

  “Look, if there’s one thing being a policeman has taught me, it’s that there is no such thing as a “kind” of person. People are people. Every one of us has weird secrets and tangled lives. Rebecca was a great woman, but maybe she wasn’t faithful to Barry. It can happen. She and Greg were working in close quarters, and, well… sparks can fly.”

  “You’re building the case around this theory?” Martine asked. “This is ridiculous.”

  “I love Barry, all right,” KD said. “But I can’t magically explain away the fingerprints, or the smashed glasses, or a dead Greg. If you tie it all together, there’s one obvious explanation. Of course Barry won’t admit it. But a jury would agree with me. He’s done it.”

  “And Rebecca?” Martine asked. “You haven’t found her body yet.”

  “Yes,” KD said. “I desperately hope she’s still alive. But the K9 unit found nothing, they just kept circling the museum. So… here we are. I hope that she’s alive, but the policeman in me knows that after they’re missing 24 hours, the survival rate of the victim drops by 50%.”

  “She could be out there somewhere,” Martine said desperately.

  “Martine, it’s getting late. You should leave. Get some rest. I know I won’t tonight,” KD said.

  “KD—”

  “Enough.” He raised a hand. “I know you cared for her too, Martine. But this case is my responsibility and I promise you I’ll get to the bottom of it. Now go home.”

  “How about the man in the poncho?” Martine asked. “The man I saw today.”

  “What about him?” KD said. “It had to be Barry you saw.”

  Mayor Clark walked into the station, hands buried in the pockets of his suit. KD got up immediately. “Mayor.”

  “KD. Deputy.” Mayor Clark nodded as he approached him. “I talked to Sheriff Smith. He said it’d take him 24 hours more to reach here. He’s cut his vacation short.”

  “I was handling things,” KD said, sounding a little annoyed. “There was no reason to—”

  “Oh of course, of course, you were handling things just fine,” Mayor Clark said. “But all the same, I felt it best if we had an experienced man back on our side, don’t you agree?”

  “I’ll be glad when the sheriff’s home,” KD admitted.

  “Right. As will we all. Now this is a terrible thing, a terrible crime, and I was thinking we need to arrange a town hall of some sort. People are talking, and while I understand you can’t disclose much about an active investigation—”

  “I heard the forensics guys said that Greg had a mysterious wound on his head, too,” Martine blurted out. “What about that, KD? What if he was only knifed after he’d already died? The killer killed him with a rock or something and then knifed him to frame Barry. That’d work.”

  “Martine, I can’t build a case around theories, I have to build it around proof,” KD said. “But no, that theory doesn’t work. The wound on his head was a week ago. Greg was alive until today, when he was knifed to death.”

  “Wait, but he went missing a week ago, didn’t he?” Bluebell asked. “So you’re saying someone hit him on the head a week ago? But knifed him today? Why would Barry do that? If it was a crime of passion, he’d just have killed Greg outright.”

  “I can’t really say,” KD said. “If you ladies will excuse me, the mayor and I need to—”

  “So you think there’s a chance it wasn’t Barry?” Martine asked.

  The mayor looked from one face to another, finally resting his eyes on KD’s frustrated look. “Ladies, a word?” he asked, taking them aside.

  “Mayor Clark, Barry’s innocent,” Martine protested as he ushered them into an empty room.

  “Now, KD’s got enough on his plate as it is. We’re all amateurs here, he’s the professional. You should leave him alone, don’t you think?”

  “Do you think Barry did it?” Martine asked.

  “He must have.” Mayor Clark shrugged. “All I know is, the townspeople are glad that the responsible party is locked up in jail. Otherwise, they’d be panicking. You remember how bad it got when Angie died? Everyone’s shaken up and—”

  “Who cares about everyone being shaken up?” Martine exclaimed. “An innocent man is in jail!”

  “An innocent man? Martine, I know Barry is your uncle, but even you can’t deny the fingerprints on the knife. Pretty damning evidence.”

  “Barry’s your uncle?” Bluebell looked surprised. “You didn’t mention that.”

  “Well, everyone knows,” Martine said
. “I just didn’t think about it.”

  But Bluebell did think about it. Martine was the only one who had seen the man in the poncho. Bluebell had taken her word at face value because she’d seen no reason Martine would want to lie. But now… now she realized that if Rebecca were missing and Barry went to jail, Martine would inherit any family money.

  Barry had mentioned he owned property. Was it his own?

  “What did Barry do for a living again?” Bluebell asked. “I’m new, so I didn’t get a chance to ask. But he seemed to be pretty well off.”

  “Oh he was, lucky guy,” Mayor Clark agreed. “His father, Martine’s grandfather, was a property developer here in town.”

  “My dad died five years ago,” Martine said. “Uncle Barry had returned and reformed a few years earlier. He took over the business. He did pretty well too, as far as I know. I never got involved.”

  “Why not?” Bluebell asked.

  “Well, I wanted to open my own restaurant eventually. Uncle Barry always said I should learn the skills first hand by working in one, and save up the money.” Martine shrugged. “I agreed with him.”

  Had she?

  Bluebell shook her head. This was ridiculous. Martine had been nothing but nice to Bluebell, and here she was, suspecting her of murder. No, it was most likely Barry who had done it. Mayor Clark and KD were right. The fingerprints were proof of wrongdoing.

  Weren’t they?

  “I want to talk to Barry,” Bluebell said. “Just once before I leave.”

  Mayor Clark shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s impossible—”

  “I have to,” Bluebell said. “I won’t leave here until I do.”

  “Neither will I,” Martine said. “I just need to know he’s all right.”

  “Fine,” Mayor Clark said. “If you two promise to leave and not make any further trouble, I’ll arrange for you to talk to Barry.”

  “Martine, if you don’t mind, I’d rather talk alone,” Bluebell said.

  “Oh… I…”

  “I’m sure she’ll be fine with that,” Mayor Clark said. “I actually needed to talk to her about a catering event.”