Dramatic Paws (Kitten Witch Cozy Mystery Series Book 1)

by Corrine Winters

  “I’ll take any of that dessert you want to give me.”

  Ember laughed, “You’ll take any food anyone will give you.”

  “What are you going to make?” Kali leapt up onto the butcher’s block to stick her nose into the bowl.

  “Don’t get fur in the batter.” Ember pushed her head away. “Don’t get offended,” she said, seeing the way Kali stiffened at her words. “I love you and you’re an awesome familiar, but I don’t think anyone wants your fur in their cherry cheesecake.”

  “I guess.” Kali gave her kitty cat shrug, then changed the subject. “You said that Lyndsy isn’t a violent person, but death by poisoning isn’t exactly violent if you think about it.”

  Ember stopped in mid mix, thinking about what Kali had said. “I hadn’t thought about it that way. Poison is the perfect way to kill someone from a distance, without getting your hands dirty.”

  “Or getting involved in the murder at all.” Kali added, swiping a paw at some of the batter that had splashed out of the mixing bowl and landed on the counter, then licking it clean with her tongue.

  “Yeah, if you think about it that way, it could have easily been Lyndsy who killed them. Plus, belladonna does grow near her, so she could easily get her hands on it.” Taking a second to wipe the batter up from the counter, she switched out her mixer for a dish to put the batter in. Pouring the batter into the dish, she left it on the counter for a second to write that information on her list.

  “So, there you have it. You just need to prove that Lyndsy did it and you’re off the hook. Things will go back to normal at the Broken Broom Pub, and we’ll go back to a normal life.”

  Lyndsy crossed the hall to her bedroom to get a hair tie so that she could pull back her waist length black hair, making it easier to work in the kitchen. “I don’t know, Kali. That’s just too pat in my opinion, and no matter how hard I try, I just can’t see Lyndsy as a killer, violent or otherwise.”

  Kali sighed and rolled her expressive kitty eyes. “Back to the drawing board we go then.”

  “Yep, back to the drawing board,” Ember replied.

  Ten

  After the cheesecake was made and resting comfortably in the fridge, Ember couldn’t get the fact that Lyndsy knew Jake out of her mind. It was one thing that she had known the women, but could her knowing Jake seriously be just a coincidence? Knowing that she wouldn’t get a moment’s peace if she didn’t take care of this, she pulled off her apron, let her long hair loose from its ponytail, and prepared to go confront her employee.

  “Where are you off to?” Kali looked up from her spot on the fireplace mantle.

  “I have to know how Lyndsy knew Jake or I’m not going to be able to get it out of my rambling mind.” She paused at the door to look at her familiar. “Do you want to come?”

  Kali thought for a second, then yawned. She stretched, stood up, and then lay back down. “Nah, you can tell me all the gory details when you get back. I think it’s time for a cat nap.”

  Ember shook her head at her familiar cat humor. Then, making sure the door was shut securely behind her, she went to find Lyndsy.

  Lyndsy was straightening up behind the counter when Ember walked in. “Hey, boss lady. What’s going on?” She gave Ember a wide smile, then went back to the task at hand. “I could smell that dessert you’re making all the way down here when you opened the door. It’s making me hungry.”

  Climbing onto one of the stools at the bar, Ember watched her carefully for a moment. Realizing that Ember wasn’t answering her, Lyndsy turned from wiping the counter down to look at her. Seeing the look on Ember’s face, she dropped the cloth she was holding and rushed around the bar to sit with her.

  “What’s going on? You look upset. What happened?” Lyndsy waited for an answer, then went on. “Did they find out who killed Jake and the others?”

  Ember gathered her thoughts, then shook her head. “No, they didn’t. That’s what I’m here about.” At the questioning look on Lyndsy’s face, she took a deep breath and dived in. “I was writing a list of the victims upstairs, and well, why didn’t you tell me you knew Jake?”

  Lyndsy’s face seemed to close down and harden at Ember’s question. “It’s not like I kept it a secret. It just never came up. I made the mistake of dating Jake a long time ago.” She shrugged, making circles in a wet spot on the bar with her finger.

  “And…” Ember prompted.

  “And, well, he was no better than Jayla, Laura, and Sheila. He used me for a while and moved on. It was no big deal.” Hopping up, Lyndsy made her way around to the other side of the bar again. “It sure is dead in here today. We haven’t had many people in.”

  Ember was more than a little stunned that Lyndsy had brushed off knowing another of the victims so casually. “You do know how it looks that you knew all four victims, right?”

  Lyndsy looked up at her with a blank look on her face, as if she had no idea what she could mean. Suddenly, her eyes widened, and she looked angry. Tossing the cloth back onto the bar, she put her hands on her hips. “Are you accusing me of something, Ember? Because if you are, you need to come out and say it.”

  Ember held out her hands palm up. “No, I’m not accusing you of anything. But you’ve got to understand, everyone is a suspect here, including me. I have to cover my bases. I don’t want either of us going down for murders we didn’t commit. But, like I said before, you’ve got to realize how this looks, and if it looks that way to me, someone who knows and trusts you, then how’s it going to look to others, especially the cops?”

  Lyndsy nodded her head, but didn’t say anything for a minute, as if she was thinking of the best response to Ember’s question. She pushed her thick glasses up onto her nose, then nodded again. “Yeah, I understand what you’re saying, but I didn’t kill anyone.”

  Ember could tell that the girl was angry, and she still didn’t fully believe her story, which made her feel really bad. She had always liked Lyndsy and hated that this was happening to both of them. But when it came right down to it, she wasn’t willing to go to prison for a murder she didn’t commit either. “Okay, I just had to ask. I need to cross as many people as I can off my suspect list. I’m heading back upstairs to work on some recipes for the pub. Do you need me for anything right now?”

  Lyndsy’s body language still spoke volumes. She was angry that she had been accused, but when she turned to Ember, she had a smile on her face. “Nope, I’ve got this handled. You go on upstairs.”

  Ember was halfway up the stairs when Lyndsy called out to her, causing her to stop.

  “Do you want me to bring you up some lunch? The soup is great today.”

  “Umm, no thanks.” Ember looked at her strangely, a look she knew the girl caught, by the way her face dropped. “I’m not hungry hun. Maybe later?”

  “Sure.” Lyndsy turned abruptly and walked into the stockroom before Ember could say anything else.

  Ember went on up the stairs, deep in thought when she opened the door to her residence. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Lyndsy to bring her lunch, she just wasn’t willing to take any chances.

  “Well, how did that go?” Kali stretched, then headed into the kitchen for food.

  “To be honest, I don’t know how it went myself.” Ember went back to her list making, still not convinced that Lyndsy had nothing to do with the deaths of those four people.

  Eleven

  Later in the evening, Ember’s energy started to flag. She still had to pretend that she wasn’t hungry so that Lyndsy wouldn’t take the opportunity to try to feed her again, so she’d managed to eat only the tiniest of meals while Lyndsy wasn’t looking. She’d scarfed down a quick bag of chips while Lyndsy went into the stockroom to bring out more beer bottles for the fridge behind the bar, and then later she’d ducked into her office for another fun-sized candy bar that really wasn’t very fun at all.

  All of which, coupled with the whole murder investigation, to explain why she was feeling so miserable when Jeff
rey George, the regional representative for the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control, strode in.

  “That was today?” Lyndsy groaned. Evidently she, too, had forgotten in all the excitement that their annual paperwork check was scheduled for this evening.

  “Ladies,” Jeffrey said with a greasy smile.

  Jeffrey George was, for some reason Ember couldn’t identify, somewhat popular around town, particularly with the ladies. There was nothing about his mid-height, boxy frame or his prematurely thinning hair that she found particularly appealing. But, between Sage’s talent for picking up on gossip and the sheer fact that Ember worked at the one decent bar in town, she’d managed to hear more about Jeffrey’s romantic exploits than she ever cared to.

  “Hello, Jeffrey,” Ember said, forcing herself to smile, which she absolutely hated to do around him. He’d once oh-so-sweetly suggested she’d be prettier if she smiled more, and it made her want to hex his nose right off his face.

  “Shall we talk someplace more comfortable?” he asked, sounding horribly suggestive.

  “Gag me,” Lyndsy muttered, luckily low enough Jeffrey couldn’t hear her.

  “Of course,” Ember said loudly, hoping to drown out her employee’s grumbling. “Let’s step into the office. All the paperwork should be in there. Lyndsy, you can run things up here for a bit, can’t you?”

  “Sure thing, boss,” Lyndsy said with a smile and a faux-salute.

  “You know,” Jeffrey told Ember in a conspiratorial tone as they walked together back toward the office, “it might do you good to find employees with a little more maturity. Is that one really someone you can rely on?”

  “Yes,” Ember said, clipped, hoping she sounded sure enough to shut that line of questioning down.

  She also hoped Jeffrey wasn’t able to tell just by looking at her that she’d been doubting Lyndsy’s trustworthiness lately, too.

  Ember waved Jeffrey into the office and shut the door, keeping it a slight crack open. She didn’t particularly want to be fully alone with him, after all.

  Luckily, the paperwork was indeed mostly in order. In truth, she should have been able to apply directly to the central office in Baton Rouge for a license renewal. But the county was relatively conservative--it had only become legal to sell alcohol on Sunday within Ember’s lifetime--and required an in-person check to make sure that bars and restaurants were handling alcohol sales responsibly.

  After looking over the numbers, Jeffrey made a little humming noise of consideration. “Well, it looks like this is all in order for now.”

  Ember smiled tightly. “Great. Should I cut you the renewal fee check right here and now?”

  He held up a hand. “Not just yet. You see, another element of my office’s process involves touching base with local law enforcement, checking in with them to see if there have been any incidents of reckless intoxication at or caused by your establishment.”

  Ember clenched her fists, fought for a deep breath to calm herself down. She had a feeling she knew where this was going, and she didn’t like it.

  Jeffrey set the paperwork aside and smirked up at her. “It’s bad luck, isn’t it? That three women died coming home from your bar the other day. Single car crash.” He clicked his tongue. “Usually those kinds of crashes occur because of intoxication, don’t they?”

  “Not in this case,” Ember said tersely.

  “Oh? Do you know something I don’t know?”

  As a matter of fact, she did. The fact that Laura had been dead before the crash, and that the crash hadn’t been responsible for causing any of the passengers’ deaths either, would surely absolve Ember of the accusation that she had allowed Laura to drink too much alcohol to drive herself home safely.

  However, she wasn’t sure she was allowed to disclose details of an ongoing investigation. Cedric probably wouldn’t like it.

  And furthermore, she was just as unlikely to be rejected for a renewed liquor license if it did indeed turn out that someone at the pub had knowingly served poisoned wine.

  “You know, I knew those women well,” Jeffrey said in a musing tone.

  Ember did know this. She’d even heard rumors that he knew them too well. Lately, there had been talk he’d been involved with Sheila. She wondered if they’d still been an item when Sheila died.

  If so, did that mean he was potentially involved in the strange story of what had happened the other night? After all, his position as the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control meant he could basically have access to any establishment that served alcohol whenever he wanted to. If this really was a case of tampering with a drink, Jeffrey would have had as much opportunity as Ember or Lyndsey would.

  Ember felt a driving compulsion to ask him more about his relationship with Sheila, and with the other women. But he was basically holding her liquor license renewal over her head. Pushing him now might irritate him into causing real troubles for her and the Broken Broom later down the line. If they lost that license, the Broken Broom might as well become a Snow Cone stand.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” she managed.

  He gave her a grimly satisfied look at that, then rose from the desk. Before he left, he said, “We’ll be watching the results of this investigation very closely before making our decision regarding license renewal. You have a good night, Miss McNair.”

  Twelve

  Not long after Jeffrey left, Lyndsy asked if she could take off early.

  “This place is dead,” she said, waving to the two occupied tables and her mostly-empty tip jar. “Do you think you could handle it for the rest of the night? I hate to bail, but I have this splitting headache.”

  “Sure, of course,” Ember said. Usually she might have put up a little more resistance, but she was thinking of the nice meal she could make herself as soon as Lyndsy left. “Have a good night.”

  A couple more tables came in, and Ember was able to handle making their drinks and appetizers without much difficulty, while also managing to heat up a nice, steaming plate of jambalaya for herself.

  She was just about to dig in when the door opened and another customer walked in.

  Except it wasn’t a customer. It was Cedric, dressed in his full Sheriff’s gear.

  The Broken Broom’s few real customers all stared, their chatter going quiet, as they watched Cedric walk up to Ember at the bar. Then they started chattering excitedly, evidently trying to keep their voices low enough Ember wouldn’t hear them.

  “I wish you would at least wear your civilian clothes when you came in right now,” Ember said miserably. “Everyone already thinks we’re murderers here. I’d rather news now get around that we’re being actively investigated.”

  “But you are being actively investigated,” Cedric said plainly. “How else do you expect your name to be cleared, hmm? That looks good,” he added, pointing to her plate.

  She pulled the dish closer to herself protectively. “You can’t have any. I haven’t eaten dinner yet.”

  “Neither have I.”

  With an exaggerated sigh, she rolled her eyes and grabbed a second plate, then split the contents between the two. “You owe me dinner sometime,” she said, before realizing what that might have sounded like.

  Luckily, Cedric was clearly too tired to say anything about it. He only grunted gratefully, plucked up the fork Ember handed to him, and took an eager bite.

  “So, what’s the news?”

  Cedric chewed his food thoroughly and swallowed before answering. “You were right. ME determined that the victims had all ingested toxins from the belladonna berries.”

  Ember wondered if it looked good for her that she had guessed the cause of death, or if it only made her seem even more suspicious.

  “Any idea where they came from?”

  Cedric shrugged. “The number of swamps around here? It could be anyone. But we’re doing our best to narrow it down.”

  Ember didn’t want to ask whether narrow it down meant she was still firmly inside the offici
al scope of scrutiny.

  “Are you considering Lyndsy for it? Or how about Jeffrey George?” she asked, hoping to come off as helpful and not desperately trying to displace the blame from herself.

  “No,” he said. “Why?”

  “Well, they’re both locals through and through, so they would have had easy access to belladonna.”

  “And so would everyone else.”

  “Sure,” Ember conceded. “But everyone else wouldn’t have had access to the wine. I assume we’re guessing that’s how the toxins were administered? It would have been easy enough, crushing up some berries and adding the juice into the wine.”

  Cedric made a conciliatory gesture as he continued to eat.

  “Besides,” Ember added, emboldened by Cedric’s agreement, “they both had motives. Lyndsy hated those women. They practically ruined her life. And she’d had a terrible experience dating Jake Peterson.”

  “And Jeffrey?”

  “Everyone knows he’d been involved with each of those women at one point or another,” Ember said. “Latest was Sheila. Who knows how that was going.”

  It was speculation and they both knew it. However, Ember could see that something she’d mentioned was getting the wheels in Cedric’s head turning. He was by-the-book, sure, but that didn’t mean he was totally shut off to a little outside help or thinking.

  Ember was grateful to know that she didn’t sound like she’d gone fully around the bend.

  “All right,” he said eventually. “I’ll get right on looking further into both of them. You’re definitely onto something about questioning who would have had access to the bottle. Lyndsy’s name had come up, but we might not have considered Jeffrey George.”

  Ember grinned, and Cedric finished clearing his plate. In all her excitement, Ember realized she still hadn’t touched hers.

  “But you need to keep out of the investigation, you hear me? It’s not going to make either of us look very good if you keep poking your nose in, and I keep letting you do it.”