Wrong Side of the Claw

by Leighann Dobbs

  I began wandering around the store, straightening books here, putting away stock there, my mind focused on the case. My enthusiasm from earlier had worn off, leaving me a bit depressed. Duane sounded so confident that Gus would vouch for him. And he was right. It would have been stupid for him to use such a lame alibi if it weren’t going to pan out. My gut told me he wasn’t the killer.

  Honestly, I even felt a little bad for Duane. And no wonder Jack’s ghost had been acting shady. He was hiding something—the fact he was cheating on Brenda. I walked up front to tidy the sitting area. Could Jack be hiding something else, though, as well? Like perhaps he really did know something about that night but didn’t say anything because he was too busy hiding the fact he’d been having an affair with Anne. Yep. I would bet he remembered more than he was letting on.

  I sank down on one of the purple sofas and glared up at the ceiling, venting all my frustrations skyward. “Jack McDougall, you show yourself right now, and tell me the truth!”

  Shocked didn’t begin to describe how I felt when he actually did.

  His ghost appeared in a swirl of smoke and gray mist. Pandora batted at the mist with her paw.

  “Well?” I asked when I’d recovered from the surprise. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “What do you mean?” Jack’s guilty swirl gave away the fact that he knew exactly what I meant.

  “You’ve been lying to me. Covering up. You were up to something the night you died, and it wasn’t with your wife.”

  Jack’s ghost had the decency to look sheepish. “Okay. Fine. Yes, I was having an affair with Anne Crosby. We’d met in my shop earlier that night, after I closed. Things didn’t go well, though, and then I guess I was so tired later that I fell asleep in the storeroom.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “What do you mean ‘things didn’t go well’?”

  Jack made a face. “I had to break things off with her. I mean, at first the affair was just for fun, but then she started to get clingy and demanding. She was not pleased.”

  Well, that was enlightening. “How mad was she?”

  “Fuming,” Jack said. “I was afraid she was going to stab me with those knitting needles of hers.”

  But Jack wasn’t stabbed. He was shot with his own gun. And only someone who knew where he kept it would have had access. That deposit bag in Duane’s trash might make sense after all.

  “Was Anne mad enough to kill you?” I asked. “She was in the store. She had the opportunity, and I’m sure she knew where you kept the gun.”

  “No. No way.” Jack’s ghost frowned. “I clearly remember her leaving. I locked the door behind her after she went. There’s no way she’d have killed me.”

  I exhaled slowly. Jack had dumped Anne, so I doubted there was a reason for him to lie about the events to protect her. Quite the opposite. I would have thought he would have been mad at her and wanting revenge. “Did you see anybody else?”

  “No.” His ghostly brow wrinkled in concentration. “Nope. Only that fluffy white cat. It was digging around out behind the shop when Anne left.”

  My ears pricked up at that. “Fluffy white cat? Like the one Felicity Bates has?”

  Jack made a face. “Oh, her. I don’t think it was hers. It wasn’t on a leash. Though I wouldn’t put it past her to be lurking out there.”

  “Why is that?”

  “She’s weird. When she was in my shop, looking for tarot cards that time, she wanted me to let her look in the basement. Said she wanted to look for old stock.” Jack shook his head. “Any idiot knows you don’t keep sports cards in a basement. The dampness ruins them.”

  “So, what happened? Did you let her lo—”

  Before I could finish my question, the front door of the shop opened with a jangle of bells, and Jack’s ghost disappeared in a flash. Pandora hissed, and I stood, feeling a bit out of sorts, given that I was just conversing with a ghost. A despicable cheater ghost whose wife was now front and center in my store.

  Of course the thought had crossed my mind that Brenda did know about the affair and had killed him herself, but if that were the case, then why would she be investigating?

  I cleared my throat and forced a smile I didn’t feel. She looked so vulnerable and sad. It made my heart ache. “Brenda. Hi. Welcome to Last Chance Books. How can I help you today?”

  “Hey, Willa. I thought I’d stop by and see if you’d found out anything else with my husband’s case.” She swiped a shaky hand through her hair. “I hate to admit it, but law enforcement doesn’t seem to be doing much with the investigation into Jack’s death, and time is running out. I watch all those detective shows on TV. I know that after so much time, leads go cold.”

  “Oh, um…” I wasn’t quite ready to share what I’d learned yet, especially since I hadn’t even had a chance to hash it all out with Striker, not to mention there was a possibility that Brenda was the killer. “I haven’t really found much, I’m afraid.”

  “Anything? Anything at all?” she pleaded, her tone growing more desperate. “I’d be interested in any leads at all, even dubious ones. I have my own suspicions…”

  So did I. “The case is still ongoing. As far as I know, the police are looking into a few things. I just wouldn’t want to tell you something, then have you be disappointed if it turns out to be nothing.”

  Brenda leaned closer. “It’s Duane Crosby, isn’t it? He was acting awfully squirrelly when I talked to him the other day.”

  “No.” We were treading on dangerous ground indeed, and the last thing I needed was to get caught up in an affair debacle. Still, I needed to give her something. “Duane’s not the killer.”

  She frowned. “How do you know?”

  “He has an alibi.”

  “Oh.” She seemed dejected, and we sat there in silence as she sipped the water. Finally she sighed. “I have to confess something.”

  I was all ears. “What?”

  “I found something at the store after the police left that I think might be evidence, but I was too embarrassed to turn it in.” She looked down at the floor, unable to meet my eyes.

  “What was it?”

  “Some red hairs. They were on the floor near the back door. I was cleaning up the mess from whoever broke the lock.” She pressed her lips together, fresh tears streaking her cheeks. “See, I think Jack might have been having an af-aff-affair.”

  Her shoulders shook, and I reached for the tissues. After much sniffling, she wiped her eyes.

  So, she did know about the affair. That gave her motive to kill, but if she were the killer, would she be confessing this all to me now? And she did seem appropriately upset. Unless the reason she was so upset was that she might get caught.

  Once she’d composed herself, she looked up. “See, that’s why I suspected Duane. I think the woman Jack was messing around with was Anne Crosby.”

  “And you figured he might have been jealous.”

  She nodded. “Are you sure about the alibi?”

  I hadn’t asked Gus yet, but I was fairly certain Duane wouldn’t lie about the alibi, as it would be too easy for us to find out. The direction of the conversation reminded me of how we’d found the deposit slip in his trash but no other clues. “Did you find anything when you looked out in the trash behind your husband’s store?”

  She shook her head. “I saw the red hairs while cleaning up, like I told you, and I thought something else might be out there, but I didn’t find anything.”

  Brenda finished her water and pushed up from the couch. “Well, I just hope this gets solved soon.” She gave me a pleading look. “Will you let me know if you find out anything else? I’ll leave you my cell number.”

  “Of course. You can count on me.” We exchanged contact info, and I pushed her out the door and retreated into my shop to process the new information I’d discovered from Brenda, Duane, and Jack’s ghost.

  The bartender still hadn’t shown up yet, so I took a seat again to chat with Pandora. Except she w
asn’t there. I searched her bed and all the chairs. Even went back into the storeroom, but no cat. I went back up front and flopped down on the sofa, brushing away a few stray gray cat hairs. I thought about the fact that Jack had just said he’d seen a white cat the night he’d died, and Felicity had wanted to poke around in his basement. I was positive that white cat was Fluff and Felicity was involved in all this.

  Brenda had found red hairs near the door. Both Felicity and Anne had red hair. Felicity’s was longer. Darn. I should have asked Brenda how long the hairs were. Maybe I should text her and ask.

  What if Pepper was right, and Felicity had been looking for those ingredients? Nothing had been stolen in the other break-ins. Was that because the burglar wasn’t after money or expensive items?

  Maybe Jack had been killed because he’d stumbled onto more than just someone trying to break into his shop.

  Felicity was rich and wouldn’t care about stealing a bank deposit, but maybe she would put the empty envelope there to try to frame Duane. She might have known about the affair if she was lurking around the place. When things went bad, and Jack died by mistake, she would have known the police would take it more seriously, and it would be just like her to try to set someone else up to take the fall.

  How else would the bank deposit pouch have gotten in Duane’s trash? He certainly wouldn’t put it there if he had an alibi and wasn’t the killer.

  But again, if Pepper’s theory was right about all of this having magical origins, then it wasn’t out of the question that Felicity had put some kind of spell on Gus. And if Felicity knew that Gus wasn’t going to investigate thoroughly, why try to frame Duane? Unless she was afraid Striker might pick up the slack. Was that why Felicity insisted on talking to Striker? Maybe she was planning on putting a hex on him too.

  Too bad I couldn’t have gotten Gus to drink Elspeth’s tea. If drinking something could cure her, did it then stand to reason that drinking something had caused her lack of enthusiasm in the first place?

  I thought briefly about the image of the martini glass with the lipstick on the rim that I’d seen in my paperweight. Maybe that was a clue after all. A clue as to why Gus was acting the way she was.

  My mind raced. It was looking more and more possible that the break-ins had been about that pleasantry charm all along. I pulled out my phone, eager to call Striker or my sister, but then they were both busy. I needed to get more information, more proof to support my claims. I pulled out the card Felicity had left the other day for Striker and typed in a text from my phone, pretending to be Striker and asking her to meet at Last Chance Books, then hit Send.

  Seconds later I got a response from Felicity.

  I’ll be there in half an hour and I’ll give you my alibi.

  24

  Pandora snuck out of the bookstore through her escape route in the closet shortly after Jack’s ghost appeared. Willa was busy talking to him, and when she talked to ghosts, she tended not to notice what was going on around her. It was the perfect cover. She hated sneaking around behind her human’s back, but the work of the cats was of the utmost importance, and they had called an emergency meeting.

  When she trotted into Elspeth’s barn, the discussions were already underway. Otis was sitting in the center of the circle, his chest puffed out with importance.

  “I’m telling you, Fluff is investigating this on his own,” Otis said.

  “But how effective is that, really?” Sasha asked, narrowing her Siamese blue gaze on him. “That human of his thinks she’s the cat’s meow, and I doubt she’d listen to anything he had to say.”

  “Don’t be so quick to write off his suspicions,” Pandora said, moving in beside Otis. She couldn’t believe she was about to support her nemesis, but then, stranger things had happened lately. “When I left the bookshop just now, my human was speaking with Jack’s ghost. He said he remembered a cat matching Fluff’s description lurking around behind his shop the night he died.”

  Otis gave Pandora some serious side-eye then said, “See? I knew I was correct!”

  A murmur of purrs, growls, and meows rose from the other cats in the room as their excitement grew. Finally, perhaps they had the clue they’d been searching for that proved Felicity was indeed Jack’s killer.

  But then Inkspot, ever the voice of reason, stepped in. “Don’t be so hasty. Where you see one, you may not see the other.”

  Otis scoffed. “You mean that just because Fluff was there doesn’t mean Felicity was too? Seems unlikely to me. They stick together, those two.”

  “Not always.” Inkspot straightened and gave the smaller cat a serious stare. “We know that Felicity Bates is after the ingredients to reverse the pleasantry charm, yes. But murder is a whole other ball of yarn.”

  “Well, that discounts his entire theory, then,” Sasha said, giving an imperious swish to her tail. “A cat couldn’t have shot Jack McDougall.”

  “Yeah!” Snowball chimed in. “We don’t have opposable thumbs.”

  “Indeed.” Inkspot nodded. “But it seems Willa might be digging too close to the truth. We don’t want her to end up like poor Jack.”

  “What else is she supposed to do?” Pandora meowed, indignant. “Gus won’t do her job, so my human feels she must take justice into her own hands.”

  “What about the potion?” Kelly asked. “Elspeth made an antidote. Has Gus taken it?”

  “Not yet, I don’t think,” Pandora said. “Last I saw, she took it back to her office with her. And since Willa is still working on the case alone, I’d say not.”

  “Perhaps we should focus on getting Gus to drink the tea, then,” Inkspot said, his deep baritone booming through the shadows in the barn. “We need her to be back to her old self so we can guide her toward arresting the guilty party.”

  Pandora sighed, searching for a new solution. “Let me try first. I might be able to persuade her. I had some luck earlier getting her to take action.”

  “Fine. Very good, then,” Inkspot said, dismissing them all with a nod. “And, Pandora, protect your human. Felicity Bates can be very dangerous. If she is the killer, Willa might not be safe.”

  25

  As I waited for Felicity to show up, I tried to stay busy by cataloguing books. It was no use. I was on pins and needles. I kept glancing at the dark windows of Jack’s Cards and wondering if inviting Felicity to the bookshop under false pretenses had been a big mistake.

  I had no proof that Felicity was involved. Just a gut feeling. Gus and Striker would want something more concrete. Like long red hairs found at the scene. I whipped off a quick text to Brenda, asking about the length of the red hairs she’d found.

  No sooner had I sent the text than Felicity arrived with Fluff in his harness. I was standing behind the counter and glanced around the shop to make sure there wouldn’t be a cat fight between Fluff and Pandora, but Pandora wasn’t in her bed. Probably hiding. Smart kitty.

  “Where’s Eddie?” Felicity asked without preamble.

  “He’ll be here,” I said. Not a lie exactly. I did expect Striker to show up at some point since he would be getting off work soon and should have seen my text from earlier. “While we wait for him, why don’t you tell me what you’ve really been doing around town?”

  Felicity gave me a belligerent look. “I don’t have to tell you anything, Willa Chance.”

  “No, you don’t. That’s true.” I leaned against the counter, grateful for it as a barrier between me and my enemy. Luckily. “I’m guessing you probably killed Jack by accident. If you confess now, you’ll get a lighter sentence.”

  “What?” Felicity scrunched her nose. “I didn’t kill anybody. Least of all Jack.”

  I chuckled. “Nice try. I already know your little Fluff here was at the lamp shop. Gus has proof.”

  “Lamp shop? What’s that got to do with the murder?”

  “The burglar broke into both places. Stands to reason the same person’s responsible for both. Plus, I happen to know that you asked Jack if you c
ould sniff around in his basement.” Oops, maybe I shouldn’t have said that, considering I’d heard that from Jack’s ghost and wouldn’t be able to explain how I’d obtained that information to anyone.

  “Really?” Felicity shook her head, sending her bright-red curls bouncing, her expression unimpressed. “Did you ever consider that maybe the robberies and the killing were unrelated?”

  “Of course.” I squared my shoulders. Actually, I hadn’t really considered that. Darn it. Was it true? Probably not. Felicity Bates was a liar. Everyone knew that. Felicity had something to do with all this. I just knew it. I raised my chin. “But really. What are the odds they aren’t related? I mean, you do have a history of untruths. And who’s to say you haven’t killed before… then blamed it on your son.”

  Those were fighting words. I knew it. But I needed to get a rise out of her to make her tell me the truth.

  Felicity’s green eyes sparkled with outrage and fury. “How dare you? I’ve never killed anyone in my life. Eddie isn’t coming, is he? Which makes you the liar here, Willa, not me. You coerced me here under false pretenses to try and get a lame confession out of me. Well, it won’t work because I’m not guilty!”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and gave her a pointed look. “So you say. Why do you want to see Striker so badly anyway? Are you planning to hex him, too, so he can’t investigate?”

  She leaned in over the counter, and I took a step back. She could be frightful when she wanted to. “You listen to me, Wilhelmina Chance. There are things going on here that you know nothing about. Big things. Important things. There is more at stake here than your little brain can fathom, and if you know what is good for you, then you will mind your own business and let your sister do the police work.”

  Before I could say anything else, she stormed out of my shop, taking her cat with her.

  Darn it. I’d probably just blown my best shot at solving the case, and I shouldn’t have provoked her the way that I had, but she was my best lead. If only Gus wasn’t being so lackadaisical about everything, I wouldn’t have to be so vigilant. Trying to investigate on my own really wasn’t easy. I needed my sister.