Well, in a place like this, anything powdery and suspicious would probably be enough, I figured. I sat down on the chair, pretending to be Don, and asked myself where I would hide the poison if it were me.
I carefully checked under various piles of paper, doing my best to put them back exactly as I found them. I assumed there wouldn’t have been too much wolfsbane needed to kill Leonard; he had died so quickly, and he probably would have noticed if it was a large quantity that had been slipped into his coffee. So I might have been looking for even just a tiny Ziploc baggy full of a strange powder.
My eyes scanned, looking for something – anything – that might be poison, but instead they landed on a handwritten letter, piled underneath a few other sheets of paper. This sheet in particular stood out to me thanks to the handwritten aspect. Every single other sheet on this table was typed out. And when my eyes landed on the signatory at the bottom of the page and saw it was a letter from Leonard, my heart stopped for a second.
I grabbed at the sheet and immediately began scanning the words.
Don,
I know you’re plotting with that bastard Joe to get my land. It’s not going to work. The land belongs to nature, not for you to build your stupid condos on. You’ll get that land over my dead body, so tell your friend the developer to just give up now. It’s not worth it. If you keep trying, I’ll make your life a living hell.
Leonard
Wow. This was definitely something. I looked around, desperate to see a photocopier, but there wasn’t one. So instead, I plucked my phone out of my pocket, swiped the screen to the left to activate the camera, and took a picture. Hopefully even though the phone was invisible the picture would still work. After all, I’d taken so many pictures with this phone I basically knew off by heart where the button to press was. I really hoped I’d done it right.
This letter was fairly damning. If anything, it showed that Leonard was threatening the men trying to get the land sold. I wondered what it was he had planned. Maybe this letter was what had triggered Joe and Don – or possibly just Don – to decide that Leonard needed to be silenced permanently. I looked at the paper, quickly flipping it over, but didn’t see any indication as to when the letter had been written. For all I knew, Leonard might have written it six months ago. Still, I doubted it. The letter was the fourth sheet down in a pile right on the top of the computer; assuming the pieces of paper on top were the newer ones, and going by the dates of a couple of invoices on the sheets above and below the letter, Don would have received this about a week ago.
I bit my lip as I read the letter again, trying to ignore the fact that it looked like it was floating in mid-air. What if Don had received this letter, read it, decided that it was time to get rid of Leonard once and for all before he became too much of an issue? What if he was worried that Leonard would go to any lengths to stop the land from being sold? After all, that letter was pretty obviously a threat.
What if that was what triggered all of this?
I put the letter back and slipped the phone back into my pocket, really hoping that the picture had worked. I hadn’t found the poison, but I had at least found something that might help prove Don was the killer. And I still had the entire storage area to search as well. It was so big I knew I wasn’t going to be able to check every nook and cranny like I’d done with the desk in the corner, but I could still check all of the boxes for signs that any of them had been opened, maybe to sneak some poison into them, or something along those lines.
However, before I got a chance to do even that, the door opened and Don came in. My eyes widened and I instinctively rushed away from him, toward the stacks of boxes, desperately hoping that he wasn’t going to come in here.
“Give me a second, I know I have that invoice in here somewhere,” he called out to someone back in the main shop.
Great. Great, great, great. Hopefully he was just going to walk in, immediately find the piece of paper he was after, and then leave. I held my breath as I slipped into a sort of aisle made up of giant cardboard boxes storing various things. I had obviously made my way into the section where Don stored the appliances; stacked to my left were a number of washer and dryers, and to my right were a couple of dishwashers, topped with piles of smaller kitchen appliances like toaster ovens, microwaves and blenders.
I made my way as far down the makeshift aisle as I could as Don shuffled through the pile of papers. Had I put everything back just the way it was? Could he tell someone had come through here and messed with his things? I hadn’t even checked for a security camera. What if there was video footage somewhere of pieces of paper in Don’s office randomly shuffling themselves? He was going to look over the footage and think there was a ghost.
A moment later, I heard the door to the main store open and close once more. “I got it right here,” Don’s voice called out, getting fainter as the door closed, and I immediately heaved a giant sigh of relief. I knew he couldn’t see me, but I was absolutely terrified of getting caught all the same.
I briefly wondered if maybe I hadn’t tempted fate just a little bit too much. Maybe it was time for me to sneak back into the main shop and get out of here.
But another part of me thought about going to jail for the rest of my life, and I nixed that idea. I was here, I was invisible, so why shouldn’t I do my absolute best to find any remaining poison Don might have hidden?
Unfortunately, the universe had other ideas. About fifteen seconds later I heard the door open again. I paused, frozen in place, hoping it was Don just looking for another piece of paper, but no luck.
“I know I have one of those microwaves in here somewhere,” he muttered to himself, and my blood went ice cold as he made a beeline straight for me.
I looked over to my right, where there sat a giant pile of microwaves. Don started heading toward me, and I panicked. I was trapped in a makeshift aisle. There were boxes to my left and right, behind me only the far wall. And Don was standing between me and the only way out of here. I looked to the ceiling.
Only one way to go from here.
As Don moved slowly toward me, checking the various microwaves, I climbed up onto one of the boxes to my left. I inched my way upwards, doing my absolute best to be as quiet as possible while Don muttered to himself.
“I know I’ve got one of them back here. Panasonic, Panasonic, LG, Black and Decker…”
I eventually managed to slip myself into a small gap between a couple of boxes, ensuring that Don wouldn’t be able to notice me unless he specifically put his hand in that small gap. But there was no reason for him to do that at all.
On the other hand, the gap was tiny, uncomfortable, and my hamstrings were cramping up pretty badly given my awkward position. I closed my eyes and took the quietest deep breath that I could, telling myself it would all be over in a minute. Don was going to find the microwave, and he would get out of there, and I would be free to resume my search without the back of my leg feeling like it was being stabbed.
What I didn’t realize was that my body pressing against the washer at my feet was slowly moving it forward, inch by inch. I thought my body was getting used to the cramped position, when the reality was it was simply making the hole bigger by pushing the boxes in front of me away.
It wasn’t until the hole got so big that the box above fell down onto me that I realized what had happened.
By some miracle I managed not to cry out, and just held my arms above my head to protect my face. The box hit my body and rolled off, moving toward Don.
“What the-” I heard him call out before the box hit him. I glanced over just in time to see the box knock Don off balance and directly into the pile of appliances on the other side of the makeshift aisle.
I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to watch as all of the appliance boxes were knocked over as Don ran into them. The cacophonous sound of cardboard falling to the ground filled my ears, and when the sound finally dissipated, I opened my eyes, checking to make sure Don was ok.
/> He hadn’t been completely crushed by the boxes. Instead, they were piled mostly around him while he still stood standing in the middle. An inflatable Halloween jack-o-lantern with a hole at the bottom had fallen directly onto Don’s head, and he looked comically ridiculous as he stood, surrounded by the boxes.
“Now how on earth did that happen?” he asked, his voice muffled by the sound of the jack-o-lantern. He reached up to get it off, but it was so big that he struggled with it, eventually losing his balance, tripping on a box, and falling face-first into the pile of boxes.
It took everything I had not to burst out laughing. The jack-o-lantern face rolled over onto his back.
“Well, my afternoon is going to suck now,” he muttered. “Stupid Halloween decorations. Next year I’m putting this stupid piece of crap up for sale for ten bucks, surely someone will pick it up at that price.”
Don struggled with the jack-o-lantern stuck on his head for a minute until it finally popped off, then he stood up and kicked it to the other end of the room as hard as he could. It must have been unsatisfying though; instead of flying across the room and hitting the back wall with a bang the jack-o-lantern just floated slowly away.
Just then, a face I didn’t recognize opened the door and poked its head in. It was a man, in his late thirties.
“Everything alright back there, Don?” he asked. “I heard a bit of a commotion.”
“All good, Ken, thanks,” Don called out in reply. “Be out in a minute.”
The door closed once more and Don hunted through the pile of appliances, grabbing a microwave from the pile. One side of the box was dented, so Don did his best to make the cardboard look normal again before climbing out from the wreckage and making his way back out into the main store.
I figured that was my cue to go. I wasn’t about to stay back here when Don was undoubtedly going to return to put everything back to normal. I counted to ten once the door closed, then made my way back toward it, opening it just enough to peek through the crack and see there was no one around before sliding back through to the main part of the store.
My heart racing, it took literally every single ounce of willpower I had not to fly out of the front door and run as far as possible from the hardware store. I was fairly certain causing a box to fall over and triggering an entire aisle’s worth of boxes to collapse on the store owner qualified as a bad use of the invisibility spell.
The man was at the counter, with Don running everything through the till.
“There’s a bit of a dent on this box, are you sure this one’s ok?” the man asked, looking carefully at his new microwave.
“I’m sure it’s fine, it came like that,” Don lied. “If there’s a problem, bring it back and I’ll take care of it for you.”
“Thanks, man. Have a good one.”
“You too.”
With that, the man left the store, his microwave in tow, and I peeled out the door after him, sneaking out the same way I had come in.
I stood out in the street, watching as the man walked back toward his car with his brand-new microwave, and I realized there was a small problem.
“Aunt Lucy?” I called out as loudly as I dared.
I was met with silence.
Chapter 20
Alright, so Aunt Lucy and I probably should have come up with a plan to meet afterwards so she could reverse the spell. Of course, I’d have been way better off thinking of that an hour ago.
What on earth was I going to do now? I was here, in the middle of town, completely invisible, with no way of reversing the spell.
I supposed the best thing to do was wait and hope that I heard Aunt Lucy call out to me. So I hung around, loitering in front of the hardware store, feeling incredibly awkward about it but knowing that not a single one of the souls walking past had the least idea that I was there.
After about an hour passed – I assumed, since I didn’t have any way to check on the actual time – I decided this was stupid. Aunt Lucy had probably left before me. Or maybe she was still in there. But either way, I was getting cold, impatient and uncomfortable.
I decided I had no other choice: I began walking back toward Aunt Debbie’s house. Hopefully she was home by now.
Either way, I had done it. I hadn’t found any extra poison, which would prove beyond a doubt that Don was the killer, but I had a photo of the letter Leonard had sent him that gave Don an extra reason to want Leonard dead – Leonard was threatening him.
And who knew, maybe Aunt Lucy had found the poison during her investigation as well. I wouldn’t know until I found her again.
I was feeling pretty good about myself and the investigation as I made my way down Main Street toward Aunt Debbie’s house. Eventually, I found myself walking behind two women that I didn’t know, and I was just about to slip past them when I realized they were talking about the murder.
“Well, I was just speaking with Ron this morning,” one of the women said. “You know, he’s never been the sharpest tool in the shed, but he gets there eventually.”
“Most of the time, anyway,” her companion replied dryly.
“I told him he had to watch that new girl. You know she’s related to Lucy Marcet? There’s something not right about that family, I’m telling you. She’s the one who served him the coffee. She had the best chance at poisoning him.”
“Right,” the other woman said. “I hope he took you seriously.”
“Oh, he did,” the first woman said. “He told me he had people already looking into her, and that they were going to be interviewing her shortly. He told me he didn’t like the way new people were constantly coming into town, and how crime seemed to constantly be going up. Ever since he became police chief, he said, the crime rate’s gone up, and it’s got to be because of all these newcomers. He doesn’t like them, and so he’s going to be taking a good, hard look at that new girl.”
My heart sunk. Obviously, they were talking about me. Well, thank goodness I now had that piece of paper that showed Don had an extra reason to want Leonard dead.
“Good. I mean, I’m not sure it’s the out-of-towners that are the problem,” the other woman replied. “After all, it could just be the fact that as nice as Ron is, he’s completely incompetent. I think that’s probably got more to do with the increase in crime than anything else. As for the new girl, well, she might have been born here, but you’re right, she’s an outsider. You never know.”
“Plus, I was talking to Ron about the case. He was telling me that Don, his brother-in-law, was one of the people suspected. Can you imagine? Don! Of course, I told Ron that was ridiculous, and he agreed with me, told me there isn’t a chance of Don spending a single night in jail. But when your suspects are people like Don Kilmer, well, I think it becomes obvious who the more likely murderer is.”
“Certainly not Don,” the other woman agreed. “Why, he’s been a stalwart of the community for years. It’s not just anybody who can run the local hardware store.”
“Did you hear his daughter is going out with Ryan and Annette’s daughter?” the woman said. “Those two would make just the most wonderful couple.”
“I did hear that! They’ve been friends for years, so it’s not really a surprise.”
As the conversation moved on I stopped and let the two women continue on. I hadn’t realized that Don Kilmer was the brother-in-law of the police chief here in town. That was going to make it way harder to get him arrested. I really hoped Aunt Lucy had found the poison in his store somewhere, because otherwise things were not looking good.
I ended up at Aunt Debbie’s about fifteen minutes later and knocked on the door. She opened it a minute later and looked around, a little bit confused.
“Hi Aunt Debbie, it’s me,” I said in a small voice, a little bit embarrassed.
“Eliza? Where are you?”
“I’m right in front of you, but I’m invisible.”
Aunt Debbie frowned. “Let me guess. Lucy?”
“Yeah,” I replied.
/>
“Alright, hang on one second.” Aunt Debbie pulled out a wand, muttered a spell, and a split second later as I looked down, I was completely back to normal.
“Wow!” I said. “That is pretty cool.”
“Now, what on earth did you do to get Aunt Lucy to turn you invisible?”
“Umm…” I started. I had a sneaking suspicion Aunt Debbie wasn’t going to be too pleased if I told her the truth, that we were investigating Leonard’s murder by ourselves and were trying to find proof Don Kilmer was the killer. “Is it ok if I keep it to myself?”
Aunt Debbie smiled at me. “Of course it is. But listen, if you’re ever in trouble, for any reason, please know that you can come to me. I realize you’re in the middle of a very difficult transition, and that it can’t be easy with both of your parents gone. I know you barely know me, but no matter what, I will have your back. I promise.”
“Thanks, Aunt Debbie,” I said with a smile. I did really appreciate how hard she was working to make me feel welcome here in Enchanted Enclave Island.
“Now, do you want to head back into town, or are you going to hang around here until dinner?”
“I think I’ve had enough adventures for one day,” I said with a smile. “I think I might have a quiet rest of the afternoon.”
“Perfect, that sounds good,” Aunt Debbie replied. “The rest of the family is coming over for dinner, so we’ll have company. Tonight is pork chops.”
“Sounds good, thanks!” I said.
Dinner around the table was hectic. Aunt Lucy showed up a bit late, and winked at me.
“Well, Don didn’t have any poison in his store,” she announced to everyone as soon as we were all settled around the dining table. “But I still think he’s the one who killed Leonard.”
Kaillie groaned. “Don’t tell me you actually went in and searched his store.”
“It’s ok; it’s not like he knew what was happening.”
“Well, that suddenly explains a lot,” Aunt Debbie said, looking pointedly at me. I blushed and quickly began scooping mashed potatoes onto my plate.
A Cauldron of Hot Coffee: Enchanted Enclave Mysteries Books 1-3 Page 11