by Jessica Beck
“Not at all. It’s just that’s pretty much the same conclusion Grace and I came to earlier.”
“Not the strangling bit though, even though I like that twist,” Grace added.
“What an odd lot we are,” Momma said. She touched my hand lightly. “I’m so sorry you found another body, child.”
“It doesn’t get any easier,” I said.
“Nor should it,” Phillip answered. “With Jake being gone, if you need to talk about it, I’m here for you.”
“I appreciate that,” I said, and what was more, I meant it. “I’ll be okay.”
“When will your husband be back?” Momma asked me.
“When he and Terry are finished with their business,” I answered.
“And that business is?” Momma asked, her last word hanging in the air an incredibly long time.
“All I was told was that it was personal. Terry saved Jake’s life once upon a time, and he takes the debt seriously.”
“As he should,” Phillip said.
“And on that note, I believe it’s time to make our way home, my dear. I couldn’t eat another bite under gunpoint,” she told her husband.
“I know,” he said. “Isn’t it great?”
I signaled for Trish so we could get the check.
Instead, the diner owner joined us and said, “It’s already been taken care of.”
“Trish, I can’t let you keep buying me food, as sweet of you as it may be.”
“I’m not,” she answered with a grin.
“Momma,” I said, ready to gear up.
“Actually, it’s my treat,” Phillip said, surprising me once again. “This was fun, ladies. Be careful, and remember, if you need us, we’re just a phone call away.”
My mother and her husband left the restaurant, with our thanks, and Trish walked us out as well. “They make a cute couple, don’t they?” she asked.
“Yes, but the real question is, a couple of what?” I asked.
It was a joke, but it fell flat and no one reacted. Oh well. I couldn’t be hilarious all of the time, I supposed.
We were heading to my Jeep when Grace tugged on my arm. “Suzanne. Look over there.”
I checked to see where she was pointing, and then I saw Chief Grant nodding at Paige before he got into his squad car and drove off.
“Let’s go see what’s going on, shall we?” I asked her.
“Lead the way,” she replied. “I’m right behind you.”
Chapter 14
“I finally got the store back, though I’m not sure what good it’s going to do me at this point,” Paige said as we approached.
“You can open back up tomorrow morning and start fresh,” I told her.
“Maybe. I don’t know. I’m not sure. I know you said I’ll get folks who want to see where someone was murdered, but I’m not positive I have the heart for it anymore.”
“You could always try burning some sage to cleanse the place,” Grace suggested.
Her suggestion surprised me. “Really? Do you believe in that?”
“I’m not sure myself, but I know a lot of people swear by it. One of my sales reps won’t move into a new place without walking around with some burning sage. It’s supposed to remove the bad juju or something like that. My attitude is, what can it hurt?”
“It’s an intriguing idea, but I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” Paige said. “I’m willing to do it, but how do we go about it?”
“Let me call Ramona and ask her,” Grace said. She dialed the number, and after a few minutes of hushed conversation, she hung up. “Okay. I’ve got it. First we need some sage.”
“That much makes sense,” Paige said. “Where are you supposed to find it? Is it the kind you get at the grocery store, or is it some other type?”
“No worries on that count. She’s bringing some with her when she comes,” Grace said. “She couldn’t wait to participate.”
“How long will it take for her to get here?” I asked Grace, not sure how I felt about the ritual or how long I wanted to wait around to see what it entailed.
“Twenty minutes tops,” Grace said.
I saw an opportunity to take advantage of our waiting time. “While we’re waiting, would you mind if we had a look around inside the bookstore, Paige?”
“Be my guest. It’s unlocked. If you don’t mind, I’ll wait out here for your friend.”
“You honestly don’t want to come inside your own bookstore?” I asked her. This really was serious, not that I could blame her. The murder had been so closely tied to her new bookstore that she couldn’t separate the two in her mind. Maybe Grace was right about suggesting the ritual. I highly doubted how much actual cleansing the sage ceremony would do, but if it allowed Paige to distance herself from the murder, then it was something worth doing, no matter how skeptical I might be of the procedure. Besides, I could be wrong. Who knew? It might work miracles. If it did, I might have use of Ramona myself in the future.
Grace and I walked into the bookstore alone, and even after we flipped on all of the lights, it still felt dark and oppressive inside. It was almost as though Rumsfield’s spirit was lingering behind, and he wasn’t all that happy about being murdered the night before. If that were true, I really couldn’t blame him.
“Did you feel that just now?” Grace asked me as we closed the door behind us.
“Feel what?”
“A cold, icy draft,” she said with a shiver.
“You really believe in this stuff, don’t you?” I asked her. As well as I knew Grace, it always amazed me that there were still layers I hadn’t uncovered yet.
“I feel as though there is more to this world than we could possibly understand,” Grace said. “There’s a bad vibe in here, isn’t there?”
“Maybe,” I acknowledged. “If you want to wait outside with Paige while I look around by myself, I’m perfectly okay with that.”
“No,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “I’ll stay here with you.”
“Okay then,” I said as I walked straight back to the break room where the publisher had been murdered. As I stepped between two sets of shelves, I felt a slight breeze of icy air myself, even though the windows were all closed and the bookstore was warm everywhere else. I decided to keep that particular experience to myself.
There wasn’t anything as dramatic as a chalk outline on the floor where I’d found the body the day before, but it was almost as though I could still see it there on the floor without even closing my eyes and imagining it. The geode bookend was gone too, of course, and so was the bloodstained book I’d found by John Rumsfield’s hand. Trying to drive the image out of my mind, I started looking at the other books close to where the body had been found.
They were all recent science fiction novels.
So how did the mushroom book make it there close enough for the publisher to reach before he perished?
I left the room and headed for the other storage area.
“You’re not leaving, are you?” Grace asked as she closely followed.
“No, I want to check something out over here.”
She was right on my heels, and I paused a moment to look at her. “What’s up?”
“I thought I’d keep you company. You know, in case you get spooked or something,” she said with a nervous laugh.
“Thanks. I appreciate that,” I replied. I started searching the piles of books still scattered around the storage room, and it didn’t take me long to find two other copies of Seven Deadly Mushrooms. The question was, how did the one I’d found near John Rumsfield get separated from the others? Why on earth had Paige ordered three copies of the field guide in the first place? It explained the overabundance of books everywhere. Evidently she hadn’t been able to contain herself when she�
��d placed her initial order. I picked up one of the books and thumbed through it.
“What are you looking for?”
“Something, anything, that might explain why John Rumsfield would touch a copy of this book as he lay there dying,” I said.
“I think Paige is right. He was pointing a finger from the grave at Brad Winslow.”
“How many dying clues have we seen in real life?” I asked her.
“I admit that it’s rare, but it still happens.”
“And this book just happened to be close by? It couldn’t have been more obvious unless the publisher had actually grabbed one of Brad Winslow’s books on the shelf instead.”
“Do you think someone is trying to frame him for murder?” Grace asked me softly.
“I’m beginning to think that it’s a greater possibility than I did before seeing this. Remember, Brad told us that mystery writers tended to weave intricate plots when they write.”
“That works against him, too, though, doesn’t it?”
“What do you mean?” I asked her.
“What if he knew the police would suspect him, so he decided to frame himself in such a way that it lacked real credibility? It would be a clever way to take the attention off of him and shine it onto the other suspects.”
I put the book back down in the pile as I tried to digest this new theory. “So you’re saying Winslow killed his publisher, and then he grabbed a book from the other room that had a title similar to the ones he used, wiped the man’s blood from his forehead onto the book, and then he staged it to look as though it were a dying clue?”
“It sounds absolutely insane when you put it like that,” Grace admitted.
“But that still doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s wrong,” I said.
“Are you saying that you actually believe it?”
“No, I’m not willing to go that far, but it’s got to be a possibility,” I replied. I looked around the storage room and spotted a stack of small, unopened boxes.
“What are those?” Grace asked me.
“Hang on,” I said, and then I found what I was looking for. Conveniently, it was right on top of its own stack. I opened the lid and pulled out a geode bookend, one that looked remarkably like the murder weapon. “Whoever was back here must have spotted the mushroom book when they came to get the bookend.”
“So then, it was planned after all,” Grace said.
“Not extensively, if you ask me. Both significant things found near the body were taken from this room within a foot of one another. That means that the killer most likely was playing it all by ear as they went. It doesn’t strike me as a properly planned-out crime at all. Does it you?”
“No, not unless someone’s trying to be clever again,” Grace admitted.
“You’re right. It’s harder than I thought it would be to figure out someone’s methods whose mind automatically turns to intricate plots and clever devices. How are we ever supposed to find out who really killed the publisher if we keep spinning out these intricate scenarios?”
“We approach it just like we do every other murder we’ve ever investigated,” Grace said. “We collect as many clues as we can, interview our suspects, and then we do our best to eliminate them one by one until we have the culprit in our sights.”
“Is that all? You make it sound so easy, Grace.”
“We both know that’s not true in any way, shape, or form.”
I was about to answer when I heard Paige calling us from outside the building. Evidently Ramona had made it to April Springs in record time.
“Thanks for coming out on such short notice,” Grace told the young woman as she got out of her BMW. I’d been expecting a matron in a muumuu wearing enough crystals to weigh her neck down, but instead, this was a lovely, stylish young redhead with an expensive haircut and a quick smile.
“It’s my pleasure.”
Grace introduced Paige, and then she turned to me. “Ramona, this is Suzanne Hart.”
The saleswoman took my hand and gave it a warm shake. “It’s so nice to meet you. Grace has told me all about you. I’d love to try one of your donuts, but I’m afraid it would lead to a downward spiral of me binge eating them and not being able to fit into my clothes anymore.”
“You should come by when I’m open if you like them that much,” I said. “The first one’s free.” I suddenly remembered the donuts still in the Jeep. I’d never even gotten the chance to use them as bribes earlier, and I’d just have to throw them out tomorrow anyway. I was not a fan of stale donuts, and I’d rather see them thrown away than being consumed by anyone. “As a matter of fact, I can give you three dozen tonight if you’ll walk over to my Jeep with me when we’re finished here.”
“As much as I appreciate the offer, I’d really better not,” she said. After she collected some things from her trunk, she asked, “Shall we get started?”
“By all means,” Paige said.
Ramona paused in front of her before heading to the bookstore. “I’m not making any promises, but I think you’ll be amazed by how much good this does. By the time we’re finished, I have a feeling that you’ll see a real change in the atmosphere of this place.”
“I hope so,” Paige said, though her voice faltered a little at the end. She really was shaken up.
“It’s going to be fine,” Ramona said with such confidence that I began to wonder if there was something to this after all. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about this ritual, but I immediately liked the woman performing it.
“What did you bring with you?” I asked her, curious despite my skepticism.
“This is the smudge stick,” she said as she waved it around in the air. “It’s made up of white sage and lavender.”
“And the bowls?” Grace asked. “What purpose do they serve?”
“I use this one to hold under the stick as we walk through the bookstore. I probably don’t need it, but we’re going to be introducing fire into a place full of paper, so it doesn’t hurt to be careful.” Ramona handed the other bowl to me. “If you could fill this halfway with water, we’ll use it to extinguish the sage if we need to. Some folks believe that you should let it burn out on its own, but I haven’t found that to be the case at all.”
“What can I do?” Grace asked, getting into the spirit of things.
“Go in ahead of us and open every window and door,” she instructed. “That’s also a point of contention among folks who smudge, but I believe it allows the negative ions to escape.”
Once we’d done as we were told, we all met back at the front door, standing on the outside looking in. Ramona took out a lighter and lit the sage, letting it burn for a few seconds before blowing it out. The aroma was nice, an earthy-toned smell that reminded me of burning leaves, and the stick looked like incense as it smoldered, which I suppose technically it was.
She waved the smoking stick around the doorframe and intoned, “I cleanse this building of all negativity, all spirits of discord, all things in the spirit world that don’t belong in this place of life, love, and laughter.” After a few moments, she walked in, with the three of us right behind her. A part of me wanted to joke about the invocation, but the wiser part shut it down. I was surprised to see how seriously Paige was taking it, and Grace as well, for that matter.
There was a time to joke and tease, but this was clearly not it. Ramona walked around each room waving the sage stick as smoke from it drifted into the corners, around the windows, and even along the ceiling. As she moved, Ramona kept chanting, and she looked as though she might be in some kind of trance. The smoke dissipated, some of it floating out the windows. She spent the most time in the break room where the murder had occurred. Had anyone told her what had happened or where it had taken place? It was an odd thing. The smoke everywhere else had been thin and narrow,
but in the room where the murder had occurred, it was visibly thicker and more tumultuous. Grace hadn’t tipped her off, at least not while they’d been on the phone, and Paige hadn’t had enough time before we’d joined them.
Finally, Ramona nodded, and then she called for the bowl of water, which I provided. Was it my imagination, or had the place gotten suddenly lighter? I couldn’t honestly say, but I did feel as though a change had taken place. “Why did you focus on the break room the most?” I asked her before anybody else could prompt her as we walked back out front.
“I’m not sure. The mojo in there felt really strong, and the smoke was really rolling. I’ve never seen it do anything like that before, but I’ve read about it happening. Did something bad happen in there?”
“You didn’t know? Why do you think Grace called you?” I asked her.
Ramona looked confused. “I do these cleansings for lots of people when they find a new place to live or move into a new business location. I just assumed she wanted me to clean the space for her friend. You didn’t answer my question. Did something happen in that back room?”
“Someone was murdered there last night,” Paige said haltingly. “I can’t even get my clerk to come back in for work.”
“That explains the tainted atmosphere inside,” Ramona said. “The vibes are much better now though, don’t you think?”
“It’s truly amazing,” Paige said. “I can’t tell you how much better the space feels now. I must pay you for your time and trouble.”
“Nonsense. I don’t do it for money,” she said.
“Then at the very least, pick out a book, with my gratitude.”
“I did happen to spot a signed Alexa Masters. May I have one of those?”