Dana winced and shook his head. “That was awful. You’d better hang out with more leprechauns.”
Snorting, I grinned at him. “Don’t knock it till you try it.”
He paused then and looked at me with wide eyes. I love when he does that, because it means he’s really wondering if leprechauns exist—among the million other things I’ve momentarily fooled him into believing are real. It’s kind of a hoot.
“Wait. Have you…do you know…?”
“Leprechauns?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Officer Nelson. Leprechauns don’t exist,” I poo-pooed.
I don’t really know if they do or not. I’ve never run into one, but as far as I know they’re just a myth.
“I didn’t think talking bats did, either,” he whispered from the side of his mouth. “Yet, you do have one. I don’t think a leprechaun is such a stretch at this point. So don’t you make me sound like I’m the one with the overactive imagination.”
“That’s fair. But—in case you wondered—I do know a witch with a talking iguana.”
He held up his hand and shook his head. “Stop right now. I’m on supernatural overload with ghosts, talking animals, reincarnations and someone named Baby Yoda. Let’s hold off on anything else.”
I shrugged, twisting a piece of my hair and smiling coyly. “It’s Baba Yaga, and you’d better watch your britches. If she hears you call her that, she’ll snatch your tongue right from your mouth.” He gave me a questioning look of disbelief I decided to ignore. “Anyway, I’m just trying to make you feel like part of our secret group. If you don’t want the password, who am I to force you?”
Dana rasped a sigh. “Miss Cartwright? We’re getting off track. Now, who were you here at the motel to see?”
Sighing, I lifted my face to the warm sun. “Would you believe Bob Hope? I heard there was a sighting, so I ran right over. Because I mean, Bob Hope. C’mon.”
“Stevie…”
Bingo. We were right on track. Officer Nelson was annoyed with me. It’s what kept our relationship on its toes.
But I decided to give in because what I really wanted to do was find out who this guy was and comb over the pics Win had taken with a magnifying glass.
“Oh, fine. We had a reading earlier today with a group of women, a bride and her bridesmaids. One of the bridesmaids left her purse behind. Her name is Cleo Wallace, and she’s staying here for the pending wedding of Tammy Parker. We were returning it with a quick pitstop back here so I could show Win the pond. We’d like to fill a blank space in our backyard, and a pond like this with the small waterfall would be perfect.”
He relaxed for a moment. “Are you talking by the roses?”
I nodded. “Uh-huh.”
Dana nodded back. “Oh, yeah. That would look good.”
“Are you investigating or designing our backyard?” I teased.
Dana instantly straightened his spine and furiously wrote down everything I said, then he sucked in his cheeks. “So you didn’t see anyone or hear anything? Maybe catch Bob Hope sneaking about?”
I mock gasped and clutched my necklace. “Are you kidding around with me while you’re on the job? Tsk-tsk, Officer Rigid. Isn’t that against your moral code? And no. I didn’t see anyone until that poor woman—her name’s Fallon Merriweather—came out to enjoy a cup of coffee and screamed. I’m pretty sure he was long dead by the time we got here.”
“Yes. Miss Merriweather. A guest of the wedding, apparently. Sandwich is questioning her now. She thought maybe you or Win killed him.”
“And did you stick up for your bro-friend and tell her not in a zillion lifetimes would my BFF kill someone? Because I know for sure Win would defend you.”
Dana smirked, obviously pleased Win would have his back, but trying to hide it. “Back to the subject at hand. I’m guessing you don’t know the man.”
I looked around at the swarm of police officers and the forensic team, taping off the chair the man sat in, and shook my head. “Never seen him before in my life.”
“Before we arrived, did you see anything that might be of interest to us?”
“Do you mean like,” I leaned into him and whispered with an exaggerated wink, “a ghost?”
“Well, that is what you say you do, right?”
I nodded as the breeze lifted my hair and the sun became so bright, I had to put my sunglasses on. “So all it took was a talking bat to convince you I can see ghosts.”
He rolled his eyes at me and dropped his pad back into the pocket of his uniform. “Are you ever going to forgive me for doubting you see ghosts?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m still working through that. You hurt me deep, Officer Nelson. So deep.”
“Are you sure? Because you can tell me, you know.”
“You mean like the time I told you I see dead people and you passed out on my kitchen floor? Or the multiple times you doubted me and my ability to converse with the other side?”
He gave a surreptitious look around. “Stevie…”
I bopped him on the nose with my index finger and laughed. “I’m just kidding. Nothing from the afterlife, but we did find a charm that I think came from a bracelet, over there under the boxwood. You’d better send the forensics team to bag it.”
Dana eyed me suspiciously, his eyes glittering under the bright blue sky. “And how do you know it came from a bracelet, Miss Cartwright?”
Win was suddenly by my side, a smile on his face, his arm around my waist. “We don’t, of course, my good man. It could be from anything…a necklace, a key ring.”
I guess Win was still convinced coincidences existed and his defense of Cleo, while subtle, was evident. And really, it didn’t make any sense to me that she’d have anything to do with a dead guy who looked like a hippie and had a cake server stuck in the side of his head.
Hence, I backed up my beloved. “It was just an uneducated guess.”
I wasn’t sure if I should tell Dana about the charm bracelet Cleo had or not. It might not be relevant at all, and I didn’t have the time to really see what the charm was, exactly. Only that it was, in fact, a charm. It could be anyone’s charm, right?
So I refrained from saying anything because I liked Cleo, too. And she’d given Leslie a good pop in the nose. I’m no fan of violence, but it was a slug I suspected was long overdue.
“Aside from finding the charm, did you hear anything?” Dana asked, looking pointedly in Win’s direction.
“Not a word,” Win assured him, driving his hands into his trousers and rocking back on his heels.
Now, I can guarantee you, Dana wouldn’t give Win the third degree. Never. They were mates. He’d take Win’s word over almost anyone’s.
Dana smiled at Win and clapped him on the back. “Good enough. We still on for golf next week?”
See? Dana didn’t give Win’s answer a moment’s hesitation.
Insert eyeroll here.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Win replied with a grin. “Does that do it for us for now? Or do you or the fine officers of Eb Falls PD have more questions for us?”
Dana winked. “I think we’re good for now. I’ll let you know if we need anything else.”
Win held out his arm to me. “Shall we, Dove? We don’t want to get in anyone’s way.”
I looped my arm through his and began to follow his lead when a sudden scream that sounded as though someone’s skin was being peeled off stopped us.
The glass door where Fallon had come from earlier burst open, and in the melee of policeman scattered around and the forensics team doing their jobs, I couldn’t quite see who’d arrived. But that shrill scream had stopped us all in our tracks, making everyone gape.
“No!” someone howled as though in pain. “No! No! No! I can’t believe it’s true!”
“Cleo, wait!” Don’t go over there!” another vaguely familiar voice warned.
Tammy Parker came flying out behind her friend, her toilet paper bridal veil
all but shredded now, with Leslie and Linda in tow.
Tammy tried to grab her, but Cleo evaded, running straight for the man in the chair. “Cleo, stop!”
Somehow, Cleo managed to get past the police officers, tears streaming down her pale face as she fell to her knees in the vicinity of the dead man in the chair.
“Doug! Oh my God, Doug! What happened?” she cried, her voice so filled with pain, it made my heart clench into a fist.
So Cleo knew the victim. How? And maybe that charm really was hers.
Dang. That would disappoint me. But she looked overwrought. Surely no one who’d been involved in a murder was this good an actress.
Leslie was the first at Cleo’s side, swollen nose and all, and she pulled her into a hug and rocked her. “Shh, Cleo, it’s okay. I’m here. We’re all here.”
But Cleo shook her head with a violent twist, pushing out of Leslie’s arms to rise, her pale face red and blotchy. “No! No, it’s not okay! It’s never going to be okay. He’s dead, Leslie! Who did this? Who would do this?”
I watched as the girls gathered around Cleo in protective mode, each of them with concerned eyes and sympathetic expressions, still looking a bit ragged from their drinking the night before.
Rather than attack with the questions burning the tip of my tongue, which Dana would only put a halt to, we hung back and listened.
And sometimes that was the smartest thing you could do. You could shamelessly eavesdrop and no one would be the wiser.
Until the woman your fiancé kicked out of your store caught sight of you and decided you had no place being in her vicinity.
“You!” Leslie growled at Win, her eyes red-rimmed, her finger waving in the air. “What are you doing here? Did you come to gloat after kicking us out of your crooked store?”
I stepped in front of Win and glared at Leslie. She’d gone far enough with this business about me being some charlatan. I held up Cleo’s small purse in front of her angry face.
“We came to return this, and if you weren’t so poorly behaved and had to be removed from the store, Cleo wouldn’t have forgotten it.”
She tried to yank it from my hands. “Give it to me. I’ll make sure she gets it.”
Gosh, this woman was rude and defensive. I held onto it, pulling it back and tucking it under my arm. “Thanks anyway.”
With those words, I strode to where the other women had gathered and gently tapped Linda on the shoulder.
When she turned to look at me, her blue eyes held an apology. “Oh, Madame Zoltar—”
“Stevie. You can just call me Stevie, Linda.”
“Stevie, I was going to drop back by later today to apologize to you. I’m so sorry for the way Leslie behaved earlier, and now this. I swear, this wedding’s been like a curse from the start!”
Okay, I’d promised myself I’d shut up and not ask any questions so as not to poke Dana’s hornet’s nest, but I couldn’t resist.
Tilting my head, I gazed at her. “How so?”
She blew out a breath, her eyes tired, her brow furrowed in a frown. “It just feels like everything that could go wrong has. From the screw-up with Tammy’s dress to our missing luggage, to the argument Tammy had with the staff at the country club, and now this,” she sobbed. “I just can’t…” Her lower lip trembled. “I can’t believe Doug’s dead!”
I glanced over at the man in the wrought-iron chair, now surrounded by police trying to preserve the crime scene and keep an inconsolable, hysterical Cleo from getting near his body.
“You knew him, too?”
Linda nodded, tucking her hair behind her ears and squeezing her temples. “We all do.”
I winced. “May I ask who he is?”
Linda paused for only a moment, her lips pursed as tears formed in her eyes. “He’s…he’s Cleo’s husband.”
Holy dead spouse.
Chapter 6
Linda blew out a breath as the police milled about and Cleo’s ragged sobs rang sharp in the afternoon air. She bit her fingernail when she looked at me.
“He’s actually her almost-ex-husband. They’re in the process of getting a divorce. A messy but necessary one, to boot. So I can’t imagine why he’s here.” Then she held up a hand. “Wait. Of course I can. He has nowhere to go. That’s why he’s here. He’s probably looking for cash.”
I reached out a hand and gave Linda’s arm a squeeze. “Did she know he was here?”
Linda shrugged, her eyes watering more as her slight shoulders lifted. “If she did, she didn’t tell us.”
“Was he attending the wedding?”
Linda shook her head. “He wasn’t invited, if that’s what you’re wondering. None of us ever really liked him, but we tolerated him because we love Cleo. When she told us she was getting a divorce, we all secretly cheered, glad we wouldn’t have to put up with his drunken nonsense. And believe me, if there’s free booze to be had, Doug’s your man.”
Ahh, the dilemmas of having a friend who has a partner you don’t like. It makes everything harder on the friendship.
“Aside from the drinking, was there anything else about him you didn’t like?”
The moment the words flew out of my mouth, I wanted to catch them in my fingers and stuff them back down my inconsiderate throat.
This wasn’t the time to ask about the man’s faults, Stevie!
But Linda gripped my arm and turned me away from Cleo and the others. “There was plenty, but mostly he was a deadbeat. Lazy, always waiting to hit the big-time, chasing a dream that was never going to come true. Cleo took care of everything while he bar-hopped and pretended to play rock star in a band.”
My eyes went wide as my mind churned. “So he was a musician?”
Linda’s face contorted in disgust. “If you want to label it that. But really, he was just a lazy, mediocre guitar player who liked to sleep all day because his ‘craft’ required him to be out all night at bars. He was also a drunk who couldn’t keep his—” She stopped, shaking her head, her anger apparent. “That’s not my story to tell. Suffice it to say, Doug was a dirtbag who abused Cleo’s gentle, forgiving nature on more than one occasion while he sucked their bank account dry and she worked like a dog.”
“Gentle?” I blurted. I’m not sure after today I’d classify Cleo as gentle.
Linda’s eyes searched nine. “I know that she went a little batty today at your shop, but that’s after years of Leslie being an ogre about everything all the time. I swear, she could suck the joy out of a newborn kitten. She’s always doom and gloom, and Cleo usually makes excuses for her. I guess today was the last straw. Anyway, all that to say, Doug was a horrible husband.”
“Well, he certainly sounds like a candidate for a divorce,” I commiserated. “Did he stay in Seattle after Cleo asked for the divorce?”
“Yep.”
“But he wasn’t originally invited to the wedding?”
Linda tucked her hands under her armpits and shivered, trying not to look at Doug’s mutilated body. “Not after she told us she’d asked for a divorce. Doug was a leech, and while I’m sorry for my friend, I’m not that sorry he’s gone. He was the worst thing that’s ever happened to her.”
As Cleo’s cries rang in my ear, and as they tore at my heart, I pressed Linda for more information. The more I could get, the better chance I had of solving this crime. “Why do you suppose he came all the way from Seattle? What was so important that it couldn’t wait till Cleo got home?”
Linda rolled her eyes and whispered, “Probably to beg her to stay with him. He has nowhere to go. Unless he could shack up with one of his groupies, that is.”
“So he was unfaithful, then?” Of course he was. I wanted to know how unfaithful, and was he unfaithful enough to make Cleo angry enough to kill?
Linda’s lips went thin, her eyes fiery. “You bet he was. Often.”
I nodded in sympathy. “Well, I guess I can understand why they were getting divorced.”
Linda wrinkled her nose. “It wasn’t j
ust his cheating on her left and right.”
Oh, my nosey-nose was for sure going to get me into trouble, but I had to ask. “That wasn’t enough for a divorce? There’s more?”
“I probably shouldn’t tell you this…but she wanted kids, and he didn’t. By the time she finally realized he was always going to remain as mature as a fifteen-year-old, she wanted out. Only this time, instead of waffling like she’s always done, she stood firm. Changed the locks on their apartment, the whole nine. Cleo told him not long before we were all due to come back to Eb Falls for the wedding. I guess he decided texting her to death and blowing up her phone wasn’t enough. And look what happened. That dark cloud hanging over his head finally exploded.”
“Linda!” Leslie hissed, grabbing her friend’s arm, her brows smashed together in an angry frown. “Stop talking to the fruitcake and c’mon. We have to be here for Cleo.”
Fruitcake was my least favorite slur, and normally, as I said before, I could let it slide. However, this time? This time I wanted to roundhouse Leslie Cleary in the chops and watch her teeth fall out of her mouth.
Gosh, that sounded horrid, huh? But she was really starting grate, and my frustration with her and her defensive, angry attitude grew every time she spoke.
But Linda batted her away. “Would you just shut up, Les? I’m tired of your snarling like some caged dog, and I’m tired of being embarrassed by your godawful behavior everywhere we go. And I’m really tired of trailing behind you and apologizing for you! I swear on my vegetable garden, if you say another word, I’m going to show you how strong being a vegan’s made me by punching your lights out! Now, go take care of Cleo. I’ll be there when I’m done.”
So Linda had a temper, too. Interesting.
Leslie stomped off, her slouchy pout matching her slouchy clothing as she joined Tammy and a blotchy-faced Cleo.
There was so much more I wanted to ask, but Win, who’d waited in the background just behind Linda’s shoulder, hitched his jaw. Detective Starsky was on his way to question the women, and that meant it was time for us to hit the bricks.
Where There's A Witch, There's A Way (Witchless In Seattle Mysteries Book 13) Page 5