Watchful Wisteria (Wisteria Witches Mysteries Book 4)

by Angela Pepper

  The ghost’s watery blue eyes locked on mine. There was a blast of light like a camera flash going off in my face. The ghost’s form compressed into a glowing bead the size of a garbanzo bean and then shot into my mouth.

  “Ack,” I said as the ghostly garbanzo bean hit the back of my throat. “Ackakak.”

  “Stop with your nonsense,” Zinnia said.

  I coughed. “This isn’t my usual nonsense,” I said. “Your buddy Tansy was in the backseat, waiting for us, and now she’s... You know. In me. Possessing me.” I snapped my fingers. “But she hasn’t taken full control over me. Not yet.” I snapped my fingers some more. “And I haven’t blacked out!”

  My aunt gave me a hopeful, earnest look. “Tansy?”

  “Still me,” I said.

  She nodded slowly. “We need to contact the authorities. But first I need to inform her next of kin.”

  “Isn’t that something the police do?”

  “Yes, but I need to get ahead of them. She didn’t have much of a crop growing, but there are a few things that need to be cleared away before the police start stomping around. Like any wise person who deals with magical items, Tansy had a posthumous destruction plan, sort of a Living Will for people in her line of work.”

  “Who’s her next of kin? She’s not related to us, is she?”

  My aunt pointed through the car’s windshield at an overgrown sign. I hadn’t noticed the sign on the way in, due to the fading on the letters. The sign bore a family name.

  Wick.

  Is her next of kin Vincent Wick? As soon as I’d wondered the question, I knew the answer, thanks to Tansy’s spiritual residence inside my mind.

  Her full name was Tansy Aphrodite Wick. She was the sister of my least favorite municipal employee, Vincent Wick.

  Chapter 22

  Zinnia and I sat in an interview room at the Wisteria Police Department, waiting for someone to come and take our missing persons report for Tansy Wick.

  My aunt had already called Vincent Wick before driving away from Tansy’s property. Vincent confirmed that he didn’t know of his sister’s whereabouts due to having not spoken to her recently. And by recently, he meant about five years, give or take a few months. But he didn’t hesitate to help. He promised to carry out his older sister’s posthumous plans, and promised he would remove all the magical herbs in the greenhouses and stored in the cellar before the police descended.

  The interview room was chilly with air conditioning. The patch of skin between my knees and the seam of my shorts was all gooseflesh. I rubbed my legs and eyed the camera, which was placed prominently in the corner of the ceiling. The red recording light was off, but that didn’t mean we weren’t being observed. There was a one-way mirror on the wall behind the desk.

  Zinnia leaned over and whispered, “Let me handle this. Not one word from you about the g-h-o-s-t.”

  I snorted. “If someone’s listening, they’re probably trained in basic spelling.”

  She elbowed me. I would have elbowed her back, but the woman had just lost a dear friend, whom I’d unwittingly inhaled.

  The two redheads reflected in the mirror across from us shifted from left to right with matching body language of impatience. What a pair of limp flowers we were, with our faces shiny from sweating while searching Tansy’s property and our shoulders drooping from the revelation of Tansy’s demise. We both had a wilted appearance, like rhododendron blossoms three days past their prime.

  Now I was thinking about flowers.

  I leaned forward and grabbed a sketchpad and pen from the room’s desk. The pad was probably intended for something other than doodling, but I had some ideas in my head that needed to be let out. I began sketching.

  After a few minutes, Zinnia peered over and asked what I was drawing.

  “I don’t know,” I said quite honestly. I held the pad away from me, like someone in need of reading glasses might do with a menu in a dimly lit restaurant. “Abstract art of some kind,” I answered.

  “Try again.” Zinnia gently pried the notepad from my hands. “This is a top-down view of a landscape design. These circles represent trees. The big square is a house.” She tilted the notepad to the right. “Your house, I believe. There are sidewalks on two sides.”

  I gently smacked my forehead. Once she’d pointed it out, it was so obvious. Patio design and landscaping books are some of our most popular nonfiction titles at the library, especially in the spring, when I’ve seen patrons barter trades with each other at the circulation desk.

  “This can’t be my house,” I said. “The overgrown bushes at the back would be better represented by scribbles, or a spill of black ink.” I’d been thinking about the backyard that morning while we’d been having brunch next to the bramble bushes. But I had never studied landscaping books closely. The lines of my drawings were strong and confident.

  I looked into Zinnia’s hazel eyes, which were glistening.

  “These are Tansy’s plans,” I said. “Remember what Beatrizz Riddle wrote in that old Geocities posting? They want to feel useful. She said so right under point number two, what do they want?” My witch relative, whom I had never met, had written: Spyryts wish to share their wisdom, spend more time with family and friends, or to see and do the things they enjoyed when they were alive.

  Zinnia looked at me a long time before speaking. “I suppose you’re right, Zara.”

  I cupped my hand around my ear. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that. Could you repeat it a little louder?”

  “I suppose you’re right, Zara.” She shook her head.

  A man had entered the room while she was complimenting me.

  He asked, “What’s Zara right about?”

  I smiled up at Detective Theodore Dean Bentley.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know,” I teased.

  Zinnia elbowed me again. She must have used magic to make her elbows more sharp, because they really dug into my ribs.

  Bentley took down the details for our missing persons report. He tried to downplay his interest, but he seemed excited about the case, talking more quickly by the minute.

  He fixed his steely gray eyes on my aunt. “This would go a lot smoother if you told me what your friend was growing in her greenhouses.”

  “Not marijuana,” she said.

  He raised one dark eyebrow.

  “I swear,” she said.

  He looked down at his computer screen. “Tansy Wick has been charged multiple times with possession for the purposes of trafficking. The laws are changing these days in regard to this particular cash crop, but the record remains.”

  “That was so many years ago,” Zinnia said. “She made some mistakes in her younger days.”

  “As did you, from the look of these reports.” Bentley tapped away at the keyboard. “Look at all these hits on your name!” He glanced over at me. I shrugged. His steely gray eyes flicked back to my aunt. “Explain yourself.”

  “Wrong place, wrong time,” she said. “You’ll note that my name is only mentioned in your reports as a witness, an innocent bystander.”

  “Lucky you,” he said dryly.

  He tapped away at the keyboard and asked a few more questions about Tansy’s business associates. My aunt couldn’t tell him about Tansy’s secret business operation of growing magic herbs, but she did have some contacts for Tansy’s legitimate cover business. For the last decade, she’d been growing specialty houseplants ranging from African violets to low-maintenance spider plants.

  He was more interested in the threatening letters from the property developers.

  “If it turns out something criminal has happened to your friend, we will look into all angles,” he promised. “I’m familiar with that real estate development corporation. Akorn Development.” He paused. “Oh, I just heard it. Akorn is like acorn, but with a K. Interesting.”

  Zinnia asked, “Are they dangerous?”

  “Akorn Development has a few questionable practices, but I doubt they have anything to do with your fr
iend’s disappearance. They’re always sending letters, but they never follow through. They’re all bark, no bite.”

  Zinnia frowned. “But what else do you have to go on? The real estate company is the only suspect.”

  “Suspect,” he mused. “Your friend might simply be on a trip out of town for a few days. You said yourself, you two weren’t that close.”

  “A bad thing has happened to Tansy Wick.”

  “Ms. Riddle, there’s something you’re not telling me.” His keen eyes stayed trained on her. “You know more than you’re saying.”

  “Nothing relevant,” she replied icily.

  He looked at her for a long minute before speaking again. “I would imagine your niece has already informed you that I’m looking into some of this town’s stranger occurrences.”

  Her face went as stony as the granite animals decorating a certain gorgon’s yard.

  He continued, “Particularly, I’m reopening some old cases involving the occult.”

  “I don’t see what that has to do with the disappearance of Tansy Wick,” she replied with a chilly tone. She was so icy that both of my forearms scrunched up with goose bumps.

  “You would see if you were in my position,” Bentley replied with combative, fiery warmth. “Tansy Aphrodite Wick is a name I’ve been coming across frequently during my review of old cases.”

  She shifted forward on her seat, preparing to get up. “Good. Then I expect you should be able to locate her in no time. Thank you for your help.”

  “Sit,” he barked, then, “Stay.”

  Zinnia made a sound that was both high and low frequency at once. The side of my body next to my aunt buzzed with electricity. She did not appreciate being ordered around. And Bentley was being so rude to her. No wonder my attempts to set the two of them up on a date had failed. He was kind of a jerk.

  With a low, growling grumble of a voice, he asked, “Zinnia Riddle, have you ever been, or are you currently, a member of a secret religious sect?”

  I’d been keeping quiet for too long. My compulsion to interrupt and deflate the tension with a quippy comment was as powerful as any magic. I clenched my jaw.

  My aunt lifted her chin defiantly. “That’s preposterous.”

  “There are many reports of secret cult activities in this town.”

  She said nothing.

  “Just as I suspected,” he said.

  I finally chimed in, “Oh, come on, Bentley. If she told you all about it, then it wouldn’t be much of a secret cult, would it? You can’t put the genie back in the bottle. And if word of some new secret religious sect got out, everybody would be trying to join in, like they do with fad diets whenever the reporters on TV run a story about the dangers of the latest crash diet featuring a tea made from fermented rutabaga and cinnamon sticks. If you keep asking around about monsters and the occult, you’re going to find yourself in a heap of weird trouble. It’s not magic, Detective. Most of what has passed for witchcraft over the centuries is simple human nature, wishful thinking, and pattern recognition. It’s just the Law of Attraction. Haven’t you ever read The Secret? We’ve got plenty of copies at the lib—”

  Zinnia elbowed me to shut up. I leaned away from her pointy elbow and shut my mouth.

  Bentley sniffed the air. “Speaking of crash diet teas, what is that putrid smell?” He looked up at an air vent on the ceiling. “Something must have crawled into the air ducts and expired.”

  I rubbed the tip of my nose guiltily. I’d used a tissue in the car to wipe out my nostrils, but the stinky ghost-barrier compound wasn’t going away without a fight.

  Zinnia got to her feet, tugging my arm so I did the same.

  Bentley also stood and walked around the desk to the door with surprising speed.

  In a professional, authoritative voice, he said, “Ladies, I will contact you if I have any more questions.”

  “Don’t bother calling unless you have an update,” Zinnia said. She shot me a quick look and then, weaving spellwork between her words, she added, “Detective Bentley, you will keep us informed about your search for Tansy Wick. You will call us daily with regular updates. This case will be your top priority.”

  His gray irises shone like liquid silver briefly before returning to normal. Her convincing spell had taken hold.

  “The Tansy Wick case is my top priority,” he said evenly.

  She gave him a curt nod and continued toward the door.

  “Wait,” he said. “Your boots.”

  All three of us looked down at Zinnia’s boots. I’d been wearing sandals all day, but Zinnia wore old-fashioned boots that matched a few pairs I had at home. They had an all-leather upper with old-fashioned laces, combined with a sensible yet snappy heel. When I’d been a teenager, we’d called the style Granny Boots. My daughter called them our Anne of Green Gables boots.

  Zinnia tapped her pointed toe impatiently. “What about my boots?”

  “Never mind,” he said. “Your boots reminded me of someone, I think, but I already forgot what I was going to say. I forget...”

  I grabbed my aunt’s forearm and gave her a meaningful look. “Detective Bentley is dating a woman who wears boots like yours.” I flashed my eyes at her. “And also like the person who paid the vet bill for the fox on Wednesday.”

  Bentley asked, “What vet bill? You said you didn’t have a fox.”

  “Inside joke,” I said, weaving in my own convincing spell. Mine wasn’t as powerful as my aunt’s, but I could count on it to boost my lie. “There’s no fox, silly. You know me. I’m always joking around.”

  He kept giving me a suspicious look.

  “Tell us more about this new lady friend of yours,” I said, pushing more of the spell his way. “What does she look like, other than the boots?”

  His eyes got a faraway look. “She’s indescribable,” he answered.

  “Don’t be silly,” Zinnia snapped. “You’re not a victim in a Lovecraft tale. Tell us what she looks like.”

  Her command was so powerful, I felt compelled to describe the woman myself. “Leather boots,” I whispered before I caught control of myself.

  Neither of them reacted to what I’d said.

  Bentley’s face grew red. A croak came out of his mouth. “She’s indescribable,” he wheezed. “I can’t.”

  Zinnia nodded. “Very well, then. Thank you for trying.” She grabbed my hand and tugged me to follow her.

  We sped out of his office and all the way out of the police station.

  Once we were outside, I asked, “What was that all about? With the indescribable woman?”

  “I would tell you if I knew,” she said, breathing heavily and glancing back over her shoulder. “Someone else has been enchanting that man.”

  “He could be more enchanting,” I quipped. “He can be so rude. And arrogant.”

  “Someone is intruding upon our affairs.”

  “Someone who wears our boots.” I leaned back and gave her a sidelong look. “Are you sure you haven’t been dating ol’ Teddy Bear Bentley in secret?”

  She blinked rapidly. “So secret that I don’t even know?” Her brow wrinkled.

  “I do things I don’t remember when a ghost takes over. Maybe you’ve got a secret personality who’s been dating Bentley.”

  The wrinkles on her brow smoothed out. “You’re being ridiculous,” she said. “It’s far more likely that whoever got to Tansy has also gotten to the local police.”

  “Do you suppose my father’s involved? It can’t be a coincidence that he showed up right as Tansy disappeared.”

  “Rhys Quarry may be a lot of things, but he’d never harm a woman.”

  “How can you be sure? You didn’t even know he was a shifter.”

  She looked down at the sidewalk. “But...” Her mouth twitched, but no more words came.

  I rubbed the goose bumps on my forearms. The sunshine was warm on my skin, but the air conditioning inside the police department had sunk into my bones.

  Was it Tansy�
�s spirit that was causing the chill? I felt for her and sensed only stillness. She’d been quiet since moving into my head, providing little beyond her full name and relation to Vincent Wick.

  With my previous ghosts, they’d responded to the familiar. Winona Vander Zalm showed up when I had a cocktail in my hand and a house full of guests. Perry Pressman was a penny pincher who’d gotten excited about my online bill payments. Chessa had manifested when I was in or near water. Or Chet.

  Tansy Wick loved her quiet country life, her dogs, and her plants.

  There weren’t any dogs nearby, but there were some planter boxes stationed around the entryway to the police department. I walked over to one and perched on the concrete rim.

  Zinnia said, “Good idea. Let’s sit for a moment and think.”

  “I’m going to try summoning Tansy,” I said, and I explained my line of thinking.

  “That’s a bad idea,” she said. “We’re in public, Zara. What if she takes over your body and does something unexpected?”

  “You’re here,” I said. “I know you could work my body like a marionette if you wanted to. And if that doesn’t work, you can force-feed me some of those pills you mashed into Frank’s mouth that day.”

  She shook her head, but she didn’t try to talk me out of it.

  I turned toward the leafy green plants in the box and started touching them.

  “These planter boxes could use some love,” I said. “Geraniums are fine, but...”

  My spine tingled.

  Multiple Latin names for plants flashed through my head, courtesy of my new resident with the green thumb. I listened to plant names for a moment and then gently pushed them aside. Enough with the plant names. What we needed was for Tansy to tell us what happened to her.

  Could she tell me? Or show me?

  I carefully spoke inside my head, Tansy Wick, I know we never met in person, but I’m your friend Zinnia’s niece. You can trust me. Can you tell me or show me how you died?

  The stream of Latin names for plants abruptly cut off.

  My mind had been feeling green and lush, but now the landscape turned to red, like molten lava.