“Look I’m sorry — I’m a bit high-strung now,” he said in as close to a whisper as he could get. “Bring the documents to my office, and I’ll look over them. Maybe I was being rash when I… What I’m saying is that I’m an impulsive man, prone to do things in the spur of the moment.”
“Well, I have them with me. They’re in my room if you want to handle it now.”
No, he doesn’t! Cassy needed the men to stay exactly where they were. Dealing with one rapidly approaching cleaner was bad enough.
Cassy dropped to her belly and twisted so she was facing the other way. This meant she couldn’t keep an eye on anyone, but it allowed for a faster retreat. She just had to hope she wasn’t spotted. Through the mesh of benches and table legs, just by the door through which they’d entered the dining room, Cassy spotted Dot, diligently standing guard. She was oblivious to anything happening inside the room, as her gaze was fixed on the hallway beyond.
By the third bench, Cassy allowed herself a little peek over her shoulder and froze when she could no longer see either of the men she’d been spying on. A flurry of movement alerted her that they were crossing the room. Cassy rolled under a bench to hide herself completely and watched with strained horror as they approached. Dot was oblivious to them. Willows wouldn’t know her from Eve, but there was a chance that Donald might figure out who she was.
There was little Cassy could do to warn her friend beyond calling out to her, and that wouldn’t have been wise. Her fingers strummed the floor nervously as her mind raced for a solution.
Ever since she was a kid, Cassy had been enthralled with the more mystical aspects of life. It was something she’d picked up from her mostly strict and distant mother, being the one thing they had in common. Since those days, Cassy was loath to use her skills for anything but the most trivial things. Occasionally, she was called upon to do things beyond mixing a love potion or an ointment for curing hair loss.
Cassy rolled onto to her back and looked down the length of her body using her feet as a sight. It was always good to have a target when practicing magic, and in her cross-hairs now was the bucket into which the cleaner was occasionally dipping an over-sized sponge. With her hands clasped together as if in prayer, Cassy placed her thumbs to her lips and blew between her palms. The breath was warm and continued to get warmer as she chanted some old words she had learned phonetically without ever understanding them. It was a simple spell, as were all her spells, and crucially it required little time to take effect. She jerked her hands downward and unleashed her breath from between her hands. Pneuma, her mother had called it, but Cassy thought of it like a breeze. The gust was just enough to knock over the bucket, sending water across the floor.
“Scheisse!” the woman proclaimed as she tossed the sponge into the expanding puddle of soapy water. It was that exclamation and not the accident itself that drew Willows’ and Saint-John’s attention. The expensive shoes stopped on just the other side of the bench Cassy was hiding under. She squeezed out from below carefully and trotted toward Dot, who had a panicked look on her face as she frantically pointed at the men behind Cassie.
Chapter Ten
“Yes, I know,” Cassy mouthed, then shooed Dot out of the hall. She grabbed Dot by the arm and walked briskly to the reception area. In her heightened state, the large wooden bear gave Cassy a shock, as it seemed to loom above her suddenly.
“Can I help you?”
Cassy twisted sharply to the woman who had addressed them. She was short with thick glasses.
“Yes, we were thinking about staying here, me and my, um…” Cassy looked to Dot, “mother.”
“Mother, that’s right,” confirmed Dot, to Cassy’s relief. Improv was not the woman’s strength. “I had her when I was thirteen, which accounts for how young I look.”
Cassy deflated but kept smiling. “We were just driving through to Raven’s Home.”
“Havenholm,” the receptionist corrected.
“That’s the one,” Cassy said, “We’ll be on our way now. Come along, Mother. I left your pills in the car, and we don’t want another accident like last time, do we?”
And with that Cassy led Dot outside and allowed herself to breathe again only when they were safely in the car. Cassy shut the door and clicked her safety belt and waited for Dot to do the same.
“Thirteen?” Cassy giggled.
“Well, while we’re coming up with stories I thought I’d make it a little more believable. Do you think she’d really buy that I was your mother?”
“Come on, let’s just get out of here before Donald catches up.”
* * *
The drive into town was reasonably quiet, but all Cassy’s thoughts were jostling for her attention. Even the death of Mrs.—Miss—Fontaine hadn’t dampened either Willows’ or Saint-John’s enthusiasm for making a deal. She suspected the meeting at the town hall had been for show, the unexpected death notwithstanding. This didn’t account for how it came about, however. It stretched credibility that Mrs. Hamswell, the clear instigator in setting it up, was associated with property deals. This was the woman who judged the cake competition at the local school and who had once driven a ride-on lawnmower from one end of Havenholm to the other when she’d locked her keys in her car. If the goal was to create a false competition in the market, as Cassy suspected was the case with Newmark and Havenholm’s own property magnate, Mrs. Hamswell was the last person you wanted involved.
The giant, brooding tree line receded in the rear-view mirror, and the comforting and familiar skyline of Havenholm rose in front of them.
* * *
Mrs. Hamswell lived in a small house on the site of the first house in what became Havenholm. That original settlement and the buildings erected there had long ago been taken by time, fire and inclement weather, but Mrs. Hamswell still considered herself the very center of the town. It was as if living on the foundation stones of Havenholm somehow made her more important. It didn’t, but Cassy wondered if it had something to do with just how meddling the woman had become. Had she always been that way, or did she find inspiration from where she lived? The house she occupied was one of five tightly packed buildings that were more modern than those that surrounded them. They all looked alike, but Mrs. Hamswell’s was obvious from afar; it was the one with excessive posters in the windows.
With Dot leading, they made their way up the short flight of steps and across an impeccable front garden
“You’d think she’d take down some of her posters now that the meeting’s over with,” Dot remarked.
“You know what she’s like.” Cassy sighed. “She’s trying to hold onto the small amount of influence she has for as long as she can. They’re like trophies. Come next week it’ll be something else. Remember when she tried to start a vegetable competition?”
“Three pumpkins and a bunch of underwhelming carrots.”
“When this whole thing blows over she’ll find some other cause to sink her teeth into.”
The Hamswells’ front door had a dream catcher hanging above it. It jingled as Cassy approached. Other than that, the house was quiet. She rapped her knuckles against the door after having tried the doorbell with no response.
“No doubt scouring the town for gossip,” Dot snickered. “She feeds on it like a vampire. No need for her prying ways, if you ask me.”
“Oh, come on, Dot, don’t be so negative. Just what do you think we’re doing? We’re not here on a social call, are we?”
Dot shrugged and forcefully banged on the door. It swung open lazily and the two women looked into the entrance hall beyond.
“Hello?” Cassy offered weakly.
When no reply came, Dot stepped inside.
“What are you doing?” Cassy snapped. She wanted to investigate but didn’t have the same brazen entitlement Dot had. It was either that or Dot just didn’t understand social etiquette.
“The door’s open, so that means we can go in. Don’t tell me you don’t want to have a look round.”
“We barely made it out of the Auberge without being spotted. I don’t want to push my luck by actually breaking and entering.”
“It’s not breaking in if the door’s open, is it?”
“The legal definition of breaking and entering means that even if you just—” It was no use. Dot was already inside, and Cassy felt obliged to follow if only to make sure she didn’t make things worse. “I’ve seriously got to learn to drive,” Cassy muttered to herself.
As expected, the Hamswell residence was immaculate. Cassy felt ashamed that her apartment was so cluttered and disorganized. She could feel the house itself judging her. Messy old witch, it said, until Cassy realized that it was all in her head.
“Creeps you out, doesn’t it?” Dot asked.
“How so?”
“It doesn’t look lived in.”
That wasn’t true, but Cassy got what Dot was saying. There was a kind of, if not sterile, then overly neat-and-tidy vibe to the house as they slowly crept through it.
“What if she’s here?” Cassy whispered, peeking into the kitchen. In there, at least, there were signs of normal human behavior with shopping bags on the side counter.
“If she’s here, she should have answered her door.” Dot said, then to Cassy’s utter horror, she cried out again, “Mrs. Hamswell?”
“Dot!” Cassy clamped her hand to her mouth as if their cover wasn’t already blown. She relaxed when there was no reply. “I came here to get some questions answered, like whose idea was it was to set up the town meeting? ’Cause one thing’s for sure—there’s something going on behind the scenes, and I don’t think the woman who keeps plastic covers on her couch is behind it all. But she’s not here, and we shouldn’t be either.”
It was baffling to Cassy how someone could live this way as she looked into the front room of the house. She was a naturally cluttered person who didn’t mind things looking disorganized as long as she knew exactly where everything was. The Hamswells’ house was the opposite of the small apartment above the Spicery. Everything was neat and in its proper place. The fabric on the curtains looked as if it had been steam cleaned that very morning. There was not one hint of dust on the surfaces. Even the armrests on the plastic-covered couch looked like they’d only moments before been wiped down. The only thing that spoiled the presentation was the slowly expanding pool of blood that seeped in from the kitchen. The fibers of the cream-colored carpet were soaking up the brilliant red as it poured off the linoleum floor of the adjoining kitchen.
“Dot.”
“Yes, hon?”
“We have a problem.”
“What is it, dear?”
“Can you go through to the kitchen from the other side? I think there’s another entrance from the hall.”
Cassy heard Dot pad across the thick carpet, and then suddenly the footsteps stopped.
“Oh my,” Dot said softly and cleared her throat. “Cass, what do we do? Should I call the police?”
Any normal person in this situation would always call the police, first thing. There would be no logical reason not to.
“It’s okay, I’ll call them,” Cassy replied. She readied her phone in her hand but did not swipe to unlock it. Instead she crept closer to the redness. Cassy saw the door itself was propped open by Mrs. Hamswell’s foot. She lay on the floor face down, and judging by the extent of the spreading blood, she had been there for some time.
“I can hardly look.” Dot flinched but didn’t turn away. “It explains why she didn’t answer.”
Cassy knelt down. She found it was always better to get a different perspective on something to understand it. Mrs. Hamswell had taken a fall, hit her head and had apparently died where she lay. A cup of coffee was still in her hand, or at least the handle was—the rest of it lay scattered around her, its contents mixing with Mrs. Hamswell’s blood.
“It makes you think, doesn’t it?” Dot asked. “How soon your life can be over, just like that. All it takes is a fall, then bam!” She slapped her hands together to emphasize the point and made Cassy jump.
“Just what makes you think that this was an accident? We’re in the middle of a murder investigation here.”
“No, you’re in the middle of a murder investigation, I’m in the middle of calling the police.” Dot took out her phone and dialed. Cassy needed a few more minutes to find something she could work with, but there was no stopping Dot. It was, after all, the right thing to do.
The thing was, it looked like an accident, and that’s what made Cassy suspicious. It was almost like a reenactment of what an accident looked like. Even down to the little details like a broken cup, the foot propping open the door—a suggestion of what tripped her, perhaps?
“Is that you, Phillip?” Dot asked, phone clasped to her ear, her eyes glued to the grisly sight before her. “Well, Sheriff Noyce if you must. I wish to report a most terrible thing. A murder… I think it’s just an accident, but Cassy says there’s something about it she doesn’t like… Yes, she’s here. Mrs. Hamswell… Her house, honey. No, Mrs. Hamswell’s.”
Cassy let Dot’s emergency call fade from her focus, and she reset her gaze on poor Mrs. Hamswell. Was it a coincidence that the one person Cassy suspected—no, suspected was too strong a word—considered involved with the Newmark killing (it was the name she’d given to the Fontaine case) turned up dead just moments before Cassy came to ask her a few questions?
“They’ll be here soon,” Dot announced. “Sheriff Noyce was in the area and he said we should stay right where we are and not move a muscle.”
Chapter Eleven
When Noyce arrived, it wasn’t in his official vehicle. Apparently, he was on one of his increasingly frequent breaks from the job and was escorting his recently acquired lady-friend to the mall just out of town when the call came in. Cassy watched the midlife-crisis-mobile pull up outside the Hamswell residence. Despite the sunny skies, the top was up on the convertible, but it popped open as the car came to a stop, revealing the passengers like the contents of a cracked Easter egg. Dot gasped when Noyce’s girlfriend was uncovered by the receding roof. Cassy had wanted to do the same. Not that Sheriff Noyce was an unattractive man, but he was getting on in years and had the portly build of a man accustomed to desk work, which made the stunning beauty of his companion seem incongruous. They soon learned her name was Rebecca. She gave the man who was several years her senior a kiss on the cheek and let her hand slide down the side of his face. It was an unexpected display of genuine affection that caught Cassy off guard. Her split-second initial reaction pegged this woman—or girl—as a gold-digger, but Sheriff Noyce had neither gold nor tolerance for duplicity.
“Mrs. Dean, Mrs. McGuiness,” Noyce greeted them as he sprang up the steps to the house. “Can you wait out here for the deputy to arrive? He’ll take your statements.” He brushed by Cassy, who noted he was breathless, despite having arrived in his car.
“That was quick,” she said, referring to what must have been no longer than two minutes since Dot had called the station.
Noyce looked back from the threshold of the Hamswell residence. “I was close by, and Marcie at the station always contacts me for situations like this. I make sure she does.”
“Even if it’s his day off—he doesn’t have a day off.”
Both Dot and Cassy turned to the slight, young thing climbing the steps clad in a tight, white dress that didn’t so much accentuate her figure as receive a blessing from it.
“You must be the woman we’ve heard so little about.” Cassy smiled. “I hope you weren’t too hard on the old sheriff for that cake he made you. We did what we could to make sure he didn’t go too wrong.”
“I love cake,” Rebecca said, despite all evidence to the contrary. She looked conspiratorially left then right as if Noyce might be spying on her rather than investigating the crime scene. “It was a little too good, if you ask me.” Rebecca laughed, a curious braying sort of sound that wobbled her all over. Suddenly aware they were outside the
house where someone had recently died, the young woman cringed. “I’m so sorry,” she spluttered. “Was she a friend of yours?”
“Mrs. Hamswell?” Cassy looked at the house. She hoped the sheriff was getting more information from the scene than she’d managed to. As far as she could see, there was nothing going on. “An acquaintance, nothing more.”
“I knew her,” Rebecca said casually, “or rather, I knew her daughter; we went to school together. I’m always fascinated by this kind of thing, aren’t you?”
Although she didn’t reply, it held a certain fascination for Cassy, too.
“I’m studying forensics,” Rebecca continued, prompting Dot to wheeze and Cassy to wonder how someone so beautiful could manage brains, too.
Soon one of the sheriff department’s vehicles pulled up to the curb, and out stepped Wolinski and Jones. Wolinski went past them to the house, casting a brief, judgmental look at Rebecca and leaving Deputy Jones to ask the questions.
“This is becoming a habit,” he said, taking out his trusty notepad.
“I’m not even involved with this.” Rebecca retreated to the convertible.
“I know you’re not, ma’am,” Jones said. Something about the Texan accent made everything he said sound so gentlemanly. “I was referring to Miss Dean here, who seems to have found more dead bodies than is statistically probable.”
“Not really, if you think about it,” Dot interjected. “You see, she was following up on a hunch she had about the previous murder.”
“Fatality,” Cassy and the deputy both corrected her.
“So, it’s really just linked to the same event. If it had been an entirely different situation, then I would grant you the point.”
Murder & Spice Page 6