Wrong Side of the Claw

by Leighann Dobbs

  Wrong Side of the Claw

  Mystic Notch Cozy Mystery Series #7

  Leighann Dobbs

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  More Books By Leighann Dobbs:

  About the Author

  Summary

  Bookstore owner Willa Chance has no idea that things in Mystic Notch are about to take a turn for the worse.

  When a string of robberies escalates to murder, Willa is baffled by the behavior of her sister, the county sheriff. Normally the gung-ho lawwoman would be all over the case, but she seems more interested in doing her nails and picking out jazz music instead.

  Willa has no choice but to take it upon herself to investigate. After all, her sister’s reputation is at stake, and a killer is running loose around town. Plus she has a secret weapon—she can see ghosts. Talking to the spirit of a murder victim usually helps solve the case, but not this time. This ghost seems reluctant to help Willa out. Even her boyfriend, neighboring county sheriff Eddie Striker, can’t get the spirit of the victim to give them a straight answer.

  But things are even worse than they seem. Pandora and the cats of Mystic Notch know the real reason behind the crime goes a lot deeper than robbery or even murder. Someone has evil plans for Mystic Notch, and the cats need Willa’s help to stop them.

  With Gus out of commission and the cats struggling to stop the town’s most notorious feline from gaining the upper hand, the future of Mystic Notch is in jeopardy. It’s going to take a lot of magic to set things right—are Willa and Pandora up for the task?

  1

  Late fall in the quaint town of Mystic Notch was normally quite picturesque. The distant mountains, blanketed in the reds, oranges, and yellows of the turning leaves, provided the perfect backdrop for the white spires of the First Hope Church. Flowering mums in vibrant shades of purple, crimson, gold, and orange overflowed from the large planters that lined Main Street, adding a perfect complement to the old brick buildings that housed the shops and businesses. The crisp, fresh air, warmed by sunshine during the day, cooled to almost frosty temperatures at night. It was usually one of my favorite times of year.

  But not this year.

  This year it was overshadowed by the string of robberies that had plagued my sleepy little town. Now, instead of feeling joy at the shop windows under their bright awnings, I felt trepidation, wondering who would be next.

  Pandora, my cat, must have shared my feelings. I could tell by the way she was sticking to the middle of the sidewalk instead of skulking around the edges near the buildings, where her gray fur would blend into the shadows, giving her an advantage over a poor, unsuspecting wren or chickadee.

  I, too, was staying clear of the door openings and dark alleys. Silly, I knew—it was only a string of break-ins. It wasn’t like people were being murdered. In fact, nothing had even been stolen.

  Though I knew some of the shop owners were nervous, the robberies hadn’t put off tourists. No sense in wasting time worrying about it, I thought. Pulling my gray-and-white striped cardigan closer around me, I headed toward Last Chance Books, the shop I’d inherited from my beloved grandmother. Her passing was what had brought me to Mystic Notch several years ago. Well, that and the fact I’d needed time and space to recover from the car accident that had injured my leg. The leg was nearly back to normal now, but as winter neared, I still got twinges in it. I also got twinges when I walked too fast, like now. Cringing, I slowed my pace. Overdoing it would cause more pain, but if I took it easy on myself, the leg would stop hurting.

  We passed Buckley’s Candy Store, and I glanced in to make sure everything looked as it should. It was closed since it was still early, but the displays were all in the right place. Good, no break-in there last night.

  A few shops down, the local knitting shop, A Good Yarn, was open. Mrs. Quimby, the proprietor, glanced out the window at me and waved. She was quite elderly now, and I was concerned for her, especially in light of the break-ins. I thought about stopping to check on her, but she looked fine, and I was already running a bit late, so I waved back and continued on, making a note to myself to call her later, when things weren’t so hectic.

  A few stores down, I could see my regulars had already congregated at the door of Last Chance Books. They had their usual Styrofoam coffee cups in hand and were looking down the street toward me expectantly. I suppose one could say I’d inherited them from my grandmother along with the store and Pandora. The senior citizens had been gathering at the bookstore first thing in the morning to discuss town gossip with Gram for decades, and who was I to end the tradition? Besides, they were charming and good company.

  “Morning, Willa,” Bing Thorndike greeted me as I paused to unlock the thick oak door. He passed me one of the coffees he’d been holding and gave me a kindly smile while holding the door I’d just opened so everyone could file in. A magician in his younger days, Bing still had a magical aura about him, even though he’d retired years ago.

  Pandora trotted in alongside me, her kinked tail held high. I flipped on the lights and stashed my purse under the front counter. The bookstore was located in an old mill building and retained much of the décor of its former incarnation—lots of brick and wood. I took a deep breath, savoring the earthy vanilla-tinged scent of old paper that lingered in the air. Aisle after aisle of books filled the space along with scattered sitting nooks for reading or quiet socializing.

  The regulars had taken their seats on the purple microsuede sofa and chairs near the front of the store. Bing sat in one of the chairs, and Josiah Barrows, the retired postmaster, in another. The octogenarian twins, Hattie and Cordelia Deering, sat next to each other on one of the sofas as they usually did. Today, Cordelia was wearing a pastel-green suit with a buttercup-yellow shirt beneath, and Hattie was wearing a buttercup-yellow suit with a pastel-green shirt beneath. I guess they still hadn’t gotten the memo that fall had arrived—the colors seemed far more appropriate for Easter than November, but then, Hattie and Cordelia did walk to the beat of their own drum.

  “Have you heard any more about the break-ins from Gus?” Hattie asked me after sipping her coffee.

  Gus, short for Augusta, was my sister and also the town sheriff.

  “No.” I took my coffee behind the counter and started to get ready to open for the day by counting out the register drawer from the night before. “You know she doesn’t talk shop with me.”

  That was an understatement. Not only did Gus not talk shop with me, she became very angry when I tried to “butt in”—as she called it—to her investigations. She’d even threatened me with jail time on a few occasions. A little drastic if you ask me. I mean, I’d only been trying to help. Gus took the solving of crimes in Mystic Notch very seriously, and allowing amateurs to help was just not on her agenda.

  “I’d think she might make an exception with these, though,” Bing said. “Considering they could affect your livelihood as well.”

  Pandora had been making her way around the group, col
lecting her obligatory pets. She stopped at Bing, and it almost looked as though she nodded up at him. He smiled back. Weird behavior, but I’d seen it between the two of them before. Pandora glanced back at me then trotted to her plush cat bed in the window and settled in.

  “How many burglaries have there been now?” Josiah asked.

  “Three,” I said. “In the past two weeks.”

  “Gosh,” Cordelia said, shaking her head. “What is this town coming to? Crimes never happen in Mystic Notch.”

  “If you don’t count the murders,” Bing said.

  Pandora meowed as if in agreement.

  “What about that cute Eddie Striker?” Hattie gave me a knowing look over the top of her turquoise reading glasses. “Surely you two aren’t keeping any secrets from each other.”

  “No.” Heat prickled my cheeks as I thought of Striker. We’d been spending a lot of time together this past year, and the recent discovery that we both had a peculiar talent for seeing ghosts had brought us even closer together. Striker was the sheriff in the neighboring county, and Gus sometimes called him in to help on cases. He had a lot more experience investigating murder cases than she did, and with the rash of suspicious deaths that had happened in the last year or so, his help had been much appreciated. “He doesn’t know anything official about what’s going on here, though. Gus hasn’t asked for his help.”

  “They’re not technically burglaries, from what I hear,” Bing said, jarring me out of my thoughts. “According to the owners, nothing was taken.”

  “That’s odd,” Cordelia said.

  “But it’s happened at three different stores.” Hattie played with the plastic lid of her Styrofoam coffee cup. “Doesn’t that seem weird to anyone else?”

  “Sure does,” Josiah said. “What do you think the person is after?”

  Bing’s expression turned serious. “We don’t know that they’re after anything. Maybe they are just not that good at stealing, or it’s kids on a lark.”

  “Or the shop owners could be making it up,” Hattie suggested. “You know, for the insurance money.”

  “I don’t think that’s the case,” Josiah said. “They haven’t claimed anything was stolen, and why would Bernie put a new lock in the lamp shop if he’d made the whole thing up?”

  “Yeah, I saw Deena down at the hairdresser’s, and she was very upset about the break-in at her curio shop,” Cordelia said. “Didn’t seem like she was making it up. You know Deena. Her ears turn all red when she lies, and her ears were as white as a sheet.”

  “It still leaves some strange questions, though.” Josiah tipped the cup to get the last sip of coffee. “Because why would someone break into a shop and not take anything?”

  Pandora shifted in her bed so that the sun was shining directly on her while the humans talked over on the sofa. She wanted them to think she was sleeping, even though she wasn’t. She had one eye closed and the other watching across the street where a lone leaf was losing its battle to cling to the branch of the oak tree in front of the store. Birds chirped from nearby, and a squirrel stuffed his cheeks with acorns, rushing up and down the block, gathering food for the winter.

  Beneath all the talk in the bookstore, Pandora could feel the energy of the two ghosts who inhabited the space, Robert Frost and Franklin Pierce. They were more a nuisance than anything, if you asked her. The one was always spouting off his boring poetry while the other grumbled about the incorrect histories written about him. Pandora couldn’t care less about either of them. They never petted her or gave her treats, and neither said a word of praise about the true hero there, the cat. But her former human, Willa’s grandmother Anna, had been fond of them, and Willa seemed to have developed a certain rapport with them, so Pandora tolerated their presence.

  Truth be told, Pandora was far more worried about the break-ins than any of the humans. She knew that stealing from the stores had never been the purpose of the crimes to begin with. At least not according to the gang of cats she hung around with. Rumor had it the break-ins had a much more sinister purpose, one that could change the happy, peaceful vibe of Mystic Notch into one of toxic bickering and hate.

  According to feline lore, a pleasantry charm had been cast on Mystic Notch nearly three hundred years ago by accused witch Hester Warren. The charm ensured that things in town were always pleasant, people worked together, neighbors helped neighbors. It was a protection against the evil element that was always trying to rear its ugly head.

  The charm had a variety of ingredients associated with it, and Hester had scattered those in various hiding places around town as a protection against evil. There was only one way to reverse the charm, and that involved collecting all the ingredients. And if someone who didn’t want things to be so pleasant anymore managed to collect them all… Pandora shuddered to think what might happen.

  Legend said that Hester wrote down the locations in a document that she passed on to her granddaughter. A few months back, that document had resurfaced but had been shredded and scattered to the four winds before anything terrible happened.

  That was what the cats had hoped for, anyway. But if it hadn’t, and someone had found the pieces and reassembled them, then… things would not be good.

  No. As part of the coven of the ancient cats of Mystic Notch, it was her job, along with some of the other cats in town, to ensure those ingredients were never found. They needed to keep a close eye on this situation and on one disagreeable feline in particular, a large white Persian named Fluff. Fluff and his human, Felicity Bates, were at the root of these break-ins. Pandora would swear to it. She’d also heard that Fluff had recently found part of the ingredients list. If that wasn’t a recipe for trouble, Pandora didn’t know what was.

  As if on cue, Fluff came strolling down the block on the other side of the street with Felicity. He was wearing that ridiculous-looking pink harness and had his poofy tail held high, oozing feline arrogance. Pandora hissed low. No self-respecting cat would be caught dead walking on a leash like that. It was humiliating, not to mention silly looking. Then again, his human wasn’t exactly known for her subtlety and good taste. Felicity’s high heels clickety-clacked along beside him. Her outfit was silly, too, a flowing psychedelic-patterned thing that clashed with her long red hair. The two of them together spelled bad news, with a capital B.

  Felicity Bates claimed openly to be a witch. Pandora stretched and sighed. If she was one, she was not very good. If she did get her hands on those ingredients and tried to reverse the charm, the results could be dire. Not that Felicity would care. She’d had it out for the good folks of Mystic Notch for years. Rumor amongst the cats of the town was that Fluff did her dirty work, so maybe he’d been searching for the ingredients for his master.

  Speaking of the local cat gang, she needed to hold another meeting with them in Elspeth’s barn to discuss current events. Tonight Pandora would take a trip over to see them. It had been a few days since their gang had convened, and with luck, someone else had some new information to share as well.

  Behind Pandora, the humans finished their coffees and conversation and began to leave. They were all laughing and talking as they exited out onto the street, waving to one another as they went their separate ways. Pandora wasn’t one to get too sentimental over trivial humans, but the thought of these people coming to harm because the pleasantry charm had been reversed was unsettling, to say the least.

  Pandora rolled over to face the interior of the store. Willa was putting away books now, humming as she made her way around the store. At first, Pandora hadn’t been sure about Willa, but over time, she’d become attached to her new human. She tried to communicate with Willa telepathically, the same way she did with Bing, but so far it was hit or miss. It would be easier if Willa was a believer, of course, but one couldn’t have everything.

  Even though Willa wasn’t the brightest of humans, she was still the blood relative of Pandora’s dear Anna, and Pandora couldn’t stand the thought of anything happening to Will
a because of the charm being reversed.

  Meow. Nothing would happen, because Pandora wouldn’t let it. She turned her attention back to Felicity and Fluff, who had made their way down the street. They passed Gus, who appeared to be on her way to the bookstore. The two women nodded at each other, and Pandora’s whiskers twitched. As far as she knew, Gus and Felicity hated each other. But the nods they gave seemed awfully cordial. Pandora’s fur ruffled with suspicion.

  What was that about?

  2

  My sister, Gus, sidled into the bookstore mere seconds after the others had left. I checked the clock and sighed. Time to officially open for the day.

  “Hey, Willa,” Gus called as I walked to the front to flip the sign in the window. “Got any books on piano jazz?”

  “Piano jazz?” I scrunched my nose and gave her a skeptical look. I knew Gus played piano at the Blue Moon sometimes, but she never liked to talk about it. “You looking for some new tunes to play?”

  “Something like that.” Gus wandered off into the stacks, leaving me to stare after her. She looked different today, more relaxed. Usually, Gus did her level best to look as professional as possible to counteract what nature had given her. Growing up, I remember people were constantly comparing her to a Barbie doll—with her petite hourglass shape and long blond hair. Only thing she didn’t have were the big blue eyes. Gus’s were amber-colored instead, a gift from our mother. Physically, we looked nothing alike since I was taller and willowier. The only characteristic we shared was our eyes.