A Cauldron of Hot Coffee: Enchanted Enclave Mysteries Books 1-3

by Samantha Silver

  “Curiosity.”

  “Why does your curiosity always have to involve doing things that would get you in trouble?”

  “Speaking of trouble,” I muttered, looking up ahead. “There’s Aunt Lucy.”

  I waved at my Aunt, who had just turned towards us, and she grinned and did a slow jog in our direction.

  “Did you see the show?” she asked.

  “Of course you were here. You wouldn’t have missed something like this for the world, would you?” Leanne asked, and Aunt Lucy threw her a wink in reply.

  “You know me too well. I’m just disappointed none of the Floozies could be here with me.” Lucy’s Floozies was Aunt Lucy’s crew of fifty and sixty-something friends who went around town doing, well, I wasn’t entirely sure what they did. But with Aunt Lucy involved, I was sure it was trouble.

  “Mom is still in Seattle until tomorrow,” Leanne said with a nod. Her mother was one of the Floozies.

  “Did you enjoy the pants split?” Aunt Lucy said with a grin, and my mouth dropped open in realization.

  “That was you?” I asked, and Aunt Lucy shot me a gleeful smile.

  “Of course! That bozo deserved all the embarrassment he got. You know, I’m sure he paid off enough members of the municipal council to get his stupid hotel approved. There’s just no proof of it, yet.”

  I burst out laughing. “I can’t believe you made his pants split!”

  “I suppose there was an advantage to not having my friends around after all,” Aunt Lucy said with a laugh. “Now come on, I heard from a little birdie that Deb is making mashed potatoes and pork chops for dinner tonight.”

  “Yum,” I said, my eyes lighting up at the thought.

  “We’ll be there soon,” Leanne said. “We still have to clean up at the coffee shop; we left right at closing to make it to the protest on time.”

  “Right,” Aunt Lucy said. “I’ll see you there, then.”

  The following morning at the coffee shop, the protest was all anybody was talking about.

  “Did you see his pants split? Childish of me to laugh, but it couldn’t have happened to a worse person.”

  “Frankly, I hope there’s an investigation opened up. Sean said it himself, someone got paid off to make that hotel happen.”

  “Barry isn’t even from here. He’s from Seattle. He moved to the island a year ago to make himself look more like a local, but he spends almost all his time on the mainland dealing with his other businesses.”

  “I heard Ariadne was trying to get a counter-protest going, but when she saw how many people showed up to protest the site, she gave up and got her cronies to scram as quickly as possible.”

  “No, I heard she just couldn’t get enough people to agree to come and counter-protest. It was going to be just her, and she didn’t want to be embarrassed that way.”

  “Well, I can see both of those being right. Either way, Ariadne is on the wrong side of history here. She needs to join those of us who care more about this town and our lifestyle than they do about making a ton of money and save the heart and soul of Enchanted Enclave.”

  By the time noon rolled around, I had to admit, I was kind of tired of the constant chatter about the hotel and the protest. I knew it was a big thing around town, and I knew it was important to the citizens, but surely there were other things we could talk about, too.

  Luckily, my next customer, a retired math teacher named Jack Frost who was just about one of the nicest men I’d ever met, came up to me and winked.

  “I’m guessing you could use a chat about just about anything else. So could I.”

  “Yes,” I said, relieved that someone understood. “Absolutely.”

  “Well, I’ve just discovered that many of the zoos around the country have webcams allowing you to watch what their animals are doing during the day. It’s really wonderful entertainment. I spent half the morning just watching penguins. Of course, I’m pretty sure I was supposed to be more productive in my retirement, but what can you do? The garden can wait, the penguins can’t.”

  I giggled. “I agree with you there. Watching animals on webcams is always better than gardening.”

  “Exactly. Life is too short to pick out weeds when you can watch penguins being funny. Did you know there’s an aquarium in New Zealand that chooses a naughty penguin every month and a good penguin?”

  “I didn’t know that,” I said, laughing. “Really?”

  “Yes. For example, Timmy is one of their regular naughty penguins of the month. The silly guy once went swimming during his molt, and he also stole fish and pushed another penguin over. Although my favorite is still Flip, who got the naughty penguin-of-the-month award for managing to evade the keepers on weighing day.”

  “Awesome,” I said with a giggle. “I wish I could avoid weigh-in day, too.”

  “The number one thing I’ve learned about penguins is they love stealing each other’s fish,” Jack said. “They’re quite mischievous, actually. It’s a great way to spend time. Anyway, I hope that brightens up your day a bit.”

  “It has, thanks,” I said with a smile. Jack was a great guy, and I was glad to have him around.

  However, my next customer was about to change everything.

  Dorothy Connors was one of Lucy’s Floozies, and her husband was an officer in the local police force. She looked stern, with thick glasses and grey hair that gave her a strict librarian kind of look, but she was actually pretty friendly.

  “Have you girls seen Lucy?” she asked me after ordering a medium latte.

  “Sorry,” I said, shaking my head.

  Dorothy looked annoyed. “I need to find her. I have some incredible gossip to share.”

  “Oh?” I said, curious despite myself.

  “Yes, Bob just called. Apparently they found Barry Blackburn’s body at the construction site. He was in the bulldozer, dead!”

  “What?” I said, the words not quite registering. “Barry’s dead?”

  “Yes, so you see why I have to find Lucy. She’ll be very interested.”

  “No kidding. We’re interested,” Leanne said, having overheard as she came over with Dorothy’s latte. “How did he die?”

  “I’m not sure. I only just got the news from Bob. But you know, my bet is someone killed him. After all, there’s so much anger about that development.”

  I couldn’t help but think she was right.

  “Wow,” I said. “Well, I hope they find whoever did it, and fast.”

  “Not me,” Dorothy said. “I know I’m not supposed to say that, what with being married to a cop and all, but if you ask me, this was the definition of a public service homicide. That hotel would have destroyed this town, and now it had better be put on the back burner.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that, myself.

  “I’ll text Aunt Lucy and tell her you’re looking for her,” I said.

  “Thanks. I’ll be at the grocery store.” She left, and I turned to Leanne.

  “So someone killed Barry Blackburn. I wonder who.”

  “Frankly, the suspect pool is ninety percent of the town,” Leanne replied. “Plus, most people are going to agree with Dorothy; they don’t want this murder solved. I don’t envy the cops right now.”

  Chapter 4

  The universe works in mysterious ways, sometimes. I was tired of people talking about the protest, and I got my wish. All of a sudden, no one was talking about the protest anymore: everyone was talking about the body found at the work site.

  After all, this was Enchanted Enclave. Word got around fast. It took less than a quarter of an hour after Dorothy told us her husband had texted her about it before our first customer came in, telling us the news in a hushed whisper.

  “Did you hear Barry Blackburn was found dead? Right on the work site. Unbelievable!”

  The rest of the customers in the afternoon were all on the same topic.

  “You know, murder is wrong, but if anyone deserved it, it was Barry.”

  “He’
s not even from here. You’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, I know that, but frankly I don’t have to speak well of him, either.”

  “I hope that means the hotel plans are going out the window.”

  “I just hope they haven’t chopped down too many of the lovely trees down there.”

  To be totally honest, there wasn’t really anyone saying a nice thing about Barry Blackburn. At least, not in public.

  By the time we closed, I was both mentally and physically exhausted.

  “What a day,” I said to Leanne as I cleaned the coffee machine for the night.

  “Right? I mean, I didn’t like the guy, but some of our customers were positively gleeful he was dead. There were other ways to get this same result that didn’t involve taking any lives.”

  “Do you think the project will be cancelled now?”

  “I don’t know,” Leanne said slowly. “My guess is it will at the very least be delayed for quite a while. I know Barry Blackburn wasn’t the only person involved in the development of that hotel, but he was the owner of the company that was doing it.”

  Kaillie came out of the kitchen just then. “I heard Barry Blackburn is dead, and you two better not be thinking of getting involved in this murder.”

  Leanne laughed. “Why do you think we would involve ourselves? It’s not like we, or anyone we know, is being accused of doing it. Besides, I’m not particularly thirsting for justice for Barry Blackburn. As far as I’m concerned, Chief Jones can have it.”

  “Oh. Well, good,” Kaillie said, dropping the aggressive stance and moving her arms to her side. “You know, I just kind of assumed you were going to want to involve yourselves in this.”

  I shook my head. “Nope. I’m with Leanne. No reason for us to get involved.”

  “That’s a relief,” Kaillie said. “I’m sure there’s already no chance we’re ever going to be allowed back into the paranormal world, but I always feel like your murder investigations make our reputation even worse.”

  “To be fair, if I had been locked up for murder like I had been suspected of, that probably wouldn’t have cast an amazing light on our family, either,” I argued. “And at least this way I’m not in jail.”

  “She has a point,” Leanne said. “But no, this one’s for the professionals. Are you coming to yoga this afternoon?”

  I groaned. I had completely forgotten it was Wednesday, which meant yoga at Janice’s studio. Honestly, it wasn’t quite as bad as the first few times I’d gone. Those days I thought yoga was the Sanskrit word for ‘torture,’ and I was fairly certain I was going to die in the days afterwards. Now, it was still hard, and I still wanted to curl up into a ball after and weep for a while, but I no longer felt like I’d been dropped into a cage of hungry tigers and left there for an hour.

  “I guess I’ll go,” I replied.

  “Good. Besides, it’s not even going to be that hard. It’s the relaxing flow this week.”

  “Last time we did the so-called relaxing flow I farted in the middle of one of the moves.”

  “Yeah, because you were relaxed,” Leanne replied with a grin, and I shot her a nasty look. “Just don’t eat burritos before class this week.”

  “Or I could just not go at all.”

  “Please. Can you even touch your toes without bending your knees yet?”

  “Sure I can,” I replied, bending over. As I did, about four different parts of my back cracked loudly. It figured my body would betray me.

  “You sound like you have the body of an eighty-year-old,” Leanne laughed. “You’re coming to yoga.”

  “Fine,” I muttered. Leanne had a point. It probably would be good for me.

  “I heard mom is making pizza tonight, so we should go eat at her house after you guys are done,” Kaillie said. “I don’t feel like cooking anyway.”

  “Pizza sounds good to me,” I replied. That would be my reward for successfully making it through another yoga class. So what if I was rewarding myself with food? That was totally allowed.

  Three hours later, I was lying on the floor of the yoga studio once more.

  “Is this a move? This should be a move,” I said to Leanne, who was gently prodding me with her foot, trying to get me up off the floor.

  “We can call it the lazy witch,” she replied. “Come on, Janice has another group coming in.”

  “How does she do so much yoga in one day? How have her limbs not fallen off yet?”

  “Because yoga is a practice that builds endurance in both the body and mind,” Janice said from behind me. I groaned.

  “Of course you would have overheard that.”

  “That much yoga makes me nimble and lithe,” she said with a good-natured laugh. “You can’t hear me coming.”

  “Is it because your bones have turned to jelly?”

  “No, silly,” Janice said. “Besides, I know you’re having trouble with the poses, but that means you’re putting effort into them. And you’re getting stronger, too. I remember your first time here you couldn’t hold the warrior pose for more than five seconds, and today you managed to hold for fifteen seconds three times.”

  “It still hurts just as much,” I complained.

  “It does, but you are getting better,” Janice said. “Just keep that in mind. Think positive. You’ll be happier for it.”

  With that, she left.

  “I’m just thinking about the pizza Aunt Debbie’s making,” I muttered, and Leanne laughed, holding out her hands and helping me get up off the floor.

  “Well, you’ve earned it, so come on. Let’s get going,” she said.

  On the way there, I got a text from Ross.

  I assume you’ve heard about the body at the building site?

  I did. Is it really Barry Blackburn?

  It is. Unfortunately, it means I’m going to be pretty busy for a few days and I have to take a raincheck on that date for tomorrow.

  I sent back a couple crying emojis, but then added text. Fair enough, I get that. But I will hold you to the raincheck!

  You’d better not be thinking about looking into this case, either. He added a person-sticking-his-tongue-out emoji to the message to make it look more casual, but I knew he was completely serious about it. Ross had never liked that we investigated the last two murders here on Enchanted Enclave.

  Don’t worry, I’m staying way out of it, I replied.

  Cool. Talk soon!

  Little did I know, I had just lied to Ross.

  Chapter 5

  “Oh good, you’re here. The first pizza is almost ready,” Aunt Debbie said as we entered the house. She was still wearing oven mitts, despite being nowhere near the kitchen. “I’m running just a tiny bit behind, but don’t worry, I have snacks out for everyone to munch on. Everyone else is in the kitchen.”

  “Thanks, Aunt Debbie,” Leanne said, and the two of us followed the low murmur of chatting that came from the main part of the house.

  “Well, if it isn’t my favorite daughter and favorite niece,” Uncle Bob announced when Leanne and I walked into the kitchen.

  “Hey!” Kaillie said, feigning insult. Going by the look on Uncle Bob’s face, he had completely forgotten that Kaillie was also his niece and happened to be standing right by the sink.

  “Whoops,” he said quickly. “Well, you’re also my favorite niece, Kaillie. It’s a tie. But hey, I’ve been saying that for years, and until a few months ago, I only had one niece that I actually knew.”

  Kaillie laughed. “Fine, you get away with it this time.”

  “I’m getting old, you know. I can’t be expected to remember all my family members.”

  “Those pizzas better be ready soon,” Aunt Lucy said. “I’m getting old too, I only have so much time left to stuff my face with carbs, and I’m not going to waste a single minute of that time.”

  “It’s coming, it’s coming,” Aunt Debbie said, laughing. “Why don’t you all go have a seat at the dining table, and I’ll have the food over in a minute.”

&n
bsp; The rest of us meandered over to the dining room and took our chairs, and a moment later a pizza came whizzing through the doorway like a frisbee, turning sideways to narrowly avoid Uncle Bob’s head—but somehow not losing so much as a single pepperoni while doing so—before landing perfectly on the round serving board in the middle of the table. A second later, a bowl of salad zoomed past and landed next to it while serving tongs followed immediately after, dropping into the bowl like it was nothing.

  “I love pizza night,” Aunt Lucy said, clapping her hands together excitedly. She pointed her wand at the pizza, muttered an incantation, and out of nowhere the pie was suddenly cut into eight even slices, with one slice magically floating to every plate at the table.

  “The second pizza is in the oven,” Aunt Debbie said, wiping her hands on her apron as she joined us. “I’ll just have to get it out in about five minutes, so eat up.”

  Aunt Lucy dug straight into the pizza while Kaillie served herself some salad and then passed the bowl to me. I passed it on to Aunt Debbie as Uncle Bob turned the conversation to the only thing anyone in town was talking about.

  “So, someone murdered Barry Blackburn,” he said. “I can’t really say I’m surprised. I bet it was Sean Ingraham who did it.”

  “Do you really think so?” Aunt Debbie replied. “He might be a bit eccentric, and he really does care about this town, but I’m not sure I can see him murdering someone. Well, whoever it was, I do hope the police are able to catch the killer. I know Barry was very few people’s favorite person, but I don’t like knowing there was a killer in town.”

  “There is something strange about it, though,” Aunt Lucy said. “I don’t think everything is as it seems.”

  “Oh?” Leanne asked. “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, I have my sources, and apparently the body was completely drained of blood.”

  Aunt Debbie’s cutlery fell to her plate with a clang, which was the only sound.

  “What?” I asked, looking around the table. “What is it?”