For my part, I just kept staring. Maybe I should have turned away, but the image was already imprinted into my shocked brain, so I don’t know what good it would have done.
Instead, I started noticing tiny details. The driver’s shirt was still perfectly tucked into the bottom part of his uniform. His hat was on the dashboard, and he had very long eyelashes. His face looked downright surprised.
My body went from hot to cold and back again. When the wind tickled my neck, I jumped as if the killer was sneaking up behind me.
Finally Lark convinced Pep to start screaming sentences instead of just caterwauling nonsense, and the situation suddenly seemed much quieter.
“What happened?” Pep finally managed, her teeth still chattering.
Lark put a bracing arm around her sister’s shoulder, but she looked like she was going to be sick herself.
“He didn’t die of natural causes, that’s for sure,” said Cookie.
“Of course he didn’t!” Pep yelled.
Lark shot our grandmother a glare.
Cookie shrugged. “Let me run inside and get something for her. Brandy?”
“No, Grandmother, I’ll be fine,” said Pep.
“Only if by that you mean you’re going to stop screaming. My nerves are shot,” said Lark.
Pep nodded again and swallowed hard. Cookie gave her a stern look to see if she was going to start screaming again, and when Cookie was satisfied that the worst was over, she said in a very matter of fact voice, “Might as well get to telling us what you see.”
It took me a few seconds to realize that she was talking to me.
“It looks like somebody killed him with a knife to the chest,” I said.
“Yes, the knife in the diaphragm makes that likely,” said Cookie.
“What knife is it?” Lark asked.
“They better not have used one of my wine bottles,” said Cookie.
“They would have had to open the wine case to do that. I doubt the spider in the back would have let them,” I said. And, in answer to Lark, “I’ve never seen that knife before. I have no idea where it came from.”
Why I was being so calm I didn’t know, but my businesslike responses seemed to help the rest of the family think more clearly.
“Didn’t someone ring the doorbell?” asked Pep, her voice rising toward panic. “Did he die between ringing the doorbell and us coming out? That was only a couple of minutes. The murderer is probably still around!” She looked behind her, then up toward the house, as if expecting to see the killer.
“We have to look in the back of the truck,” I said.
“I highly doubt that’s going to end well,” Cookie muttered.
“Catching a murderer isn’t like picking out a bouquet of flowers,” I told her.
“I was talking about for the murderer,” said Cookie. “Come on then. Stop wasting time.”
Before any of us could stop her, she marched to the back of the truck and opened the wide double door all the way. There were indeed wall-to-wall shelves of packages, amongst which cowered a huge black spider.
Cookie rapped on the door, not remotely intimidated by the spider. “Oh, Ms. Garbo, thank goodness it’s you. I’ve been so afraid,” the spider muttered.
“How have you been afraid?” Lark demanded. She was clearly referring to the fact that the spider was so big he should have feared nothing on earth.
“I heard a scuffle and a commotion. I didn’t hear anything else after that. And there’s no sign of Blu,” said the spider.
“Spiders are known to be big old chickens,” said Cookie.
“I prefer to think of us as having an interest in self-preservation,” said the spider.
“So you don’t know what happened?” I asked him.
“No. I was waiting for Blu to come back and tell me. I suppose your showing up is almost as good. But where is Blu?” he asked.
“You there, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Blu has been murdered,” said Cookie. “Is that my wine case you’re hiding behind?”
Chapter Five
So, there had been another murder at the mansion. I had been present one other time when a murder was discovered at Haunted Bluff. Based on that limited experience, chaos was about to ensue.
The other murder victim had been a warlock guest named Darrell, who had been tapped as the best man at a wedding taking place at the mansion earlier in the fall. We had found him in the linen closet. Given that a lot of people were present when the body was discovered, the investigation had begun quickly. The girl who discovered the body was in shock and needed to be comforted. Investigators needed to be called. Oddly, the investigator who was a guest at the wedding was conveniently missing that day.
The context of Blu’s death was very different.
Cookie was not shaken by a mere dead body.
My mother wasn’t there to order everyone around.
There was a giant spider.
The spider, whose name turned out to be Orwell, had been reduced to a blubbering mess.
After finding Blu, we spent the next few minutes comforting Orwell.
“Let’s look around and see if we can find the murderer,” Cookie suggested.
A shot of fear swept through me. “Fine,” I said, “but we don’t split up.” I didn’t want to run into the murderer alone.
Cookie’s expression soured, but she didn’t argue.
We walked around the outside of the mansion until we were back at our starting point in the driveway, but no one really expected to run into the murderer just lounging in the garden.
“He’s long gone,” said Pep when we had reconvened around the truck
“Someone should go find Grant,” said Lark.
By now Orwell had shifted from sobbing to quiet blubbering.
“We can do that as soon as we examine the body,” I told them.
I marched right back to Blu before anyone could say no. Even Orwell looked surprised at my words.
Blu looked exactly as he had a few minutes before. Supernaturals don’t go stiff or change color until at least twenty-four hours after they die.
One thing I noticed immediately was that Blu was smiling; he looked relaxed and happy. He did not look frightened by what had been about to happen.
I thought that was very strange.
I couldn’t touch the body, and there was no way I was going to perform an enchantment. Grant would know what I had done right away. He would also realize that there was a piece of paper on the ground.
Frowning, I bent down to look at it, then straightened up and gasped.
“It’s a murder for hire,” I whispered.
“What are you talking about?” Cookie asked. She was still trying to comfort Orwell, who was still crying. To be fair, she was about the least comforting witch I knew.
“There’s a piece of paper on the ground that says Blu was a murderer for hire,” I said. “Come look.”
Just as we rounded the back of the van, a small flame ignited on the ground on the driver’s side. I raced to stamp it out, but it was too late.
Cookie didn’t look the least bit concerned. “At least you saw what it said already,” she pointed out.
“But who was he trying to murder?” I asked.
Gusts of wind tugged at our clothes and leaves blew across the lawn. In the distance I heard the gentle lap of the ocean.
“Me,” said Cookie.
Pep immediately started wailing again, crying out something that sounded like, “Why didn’t I agree to the brandy?”
Lark looked at Cookie in consternation.
“Are you joking?” I asked.
“I never joke about murder,” said Cookie.
“Sure you do,” said Lark.
“Not my own,” said Cookie.
“That might be true,” I admitted.
Pep suddenly sat down on the ground, seemingly in protest. Everyone else ignored her.
“How do you know?” I asked Cookie.
“Just trust
me,” she said. “We don’t have time to get into the details now. We only have a few minutes to conduct the investigation before it’s taken out of our hands.”
“Do you promise to tell us more later?” I asked. My head was spinning so hard I wondered if everyone could see it.
“No, I won’t promise that,” said Cookie, jutting out her chin.
Lark was about to argue when Pep said, “Oh, for goodness sake. She isn’t going to listen! Just stop!”
Sighing, Lark went around to the passenger’s side of the vehicle and pulled the door open. A collection of weapons tumbled out.
“Ah,” said Pep. Going pale, she turned around and marched to the back of the van. “Orwell, what do you know about this?”
We tumbled after her, too shocked to do anything else.
The spider looked at her fearfully. Then he seemed to realize that he didn’t have a choice in the matter.
“I don’t know much. I swear. He’s not the usual guy I work with. He was assigned to my truck this week. He was bad at his job, too. I mean, how hard is it to deliver packages? It’s apparently pretty tough. He was most excited about delivering here at Haunted Bluff. At first I thought he was just plain stupid, but then I started to think he wanted to steal something from this place. Most of us do. I had no idea he was a murderer.”
“That does appear to have been his goal,” said Cookie dryly. “I guess he wasn’t very good at that job either.”
“If he was murdered because he was trying to murder you, that makes you a prime suspect,” I pointed out to my grandmother.
“Good luck arresting me,” she said with a cackle.
Pep went off to find Grant. She wanted to get away from the murder scene in hopes that some distance might help her calm down, and looking for Grant was as good an excuse as any.
Lark was still standing nearby, taking everything in. Now she shook her head. “Cookie, you’re going to be in so much trouble.”
“Isn’t it wonderful?” said Cookie. “Old ladies have the darnedest time getting in trouble. No one wants to catch us. And we’re usually moving so slowly. They think it’s an optical illusion.”
Then she turned to glare at Orwell. “What happened yesterday?”
“I don’t know,” said the spider.
“Very good. I don’t expect we’ll be learning anything else. Jane, let’s go sit on the front steps until Grant arrives. We might as well look busy. Might throw him off,” she said.
“I think Grant knows you well enough by now to know when you’re lying,” I said.
“I was talking about you,” she said.
“I need to go inside for a minute,” said Lark, putting and end to Cookie’s nonsense for the moment. “Try to keep Cookie alive while I’m gone.”
Once she disappeared into the house, Cookie and I sat down on the front steps and tried to be patient. While we were waiting, Rose appeared from near the carriage house wearing a pair of jeans and a black blouse. I picked her up and started petting her, making her purr like a freight train.
“Should we tell Audrey?” I asked.
“She’s gone shopping. We’ll also let Grant deal with notifying the delivery service that one of their drivers is a criminal,” she said. “Was a criminal.”
“I can’t believe you aren’t more shaken up about this. Someone tried to kill you,” I said. Then another realization struck. “The killer got killed first. He was here to kill you and someone killed him first and that means that whoever hired Blu to kill you still wants YOU dead.”
“There didn’t need to be a murder for you to realize that someone wants Cookie dead,” said Rose.
“I was a pioneer witch in my time. I fought for all sorts of equal rights. I ran a whole haunted house with hardly any help. People have wanted to kill me for a long time. None of them have succeeded so far. Some of them have been members of my own family,” Cookie said.
“Still, we should call Mom and get her home. She won’t want to be left out of this,” I said.
“Why do you want to make a bad situation worse? She’s needed where she is, dealing with the trouble supernaturals are causing all up and down the coast. Besides, the house is closed until the weekend. We can manage,” said Cookie.
“I don’t see how you can think we can manage with someone who’s trying to kill you on the loose,” I said.
“We have all the supernaturals. They’ll protect me,” she said.
Just then the front door opened slowly and with lots of creaking.
We turned to stare at the black empty space beyond the doorway, only to see the space fill up with Mr. Blacksmith. He looked down at us. He was never surprised.
“Forgive me. It is tea time. Would you like some light refreshments?” he asked
“Yes, that would be lovely. Could we have them here please? We are on vigil,” said Cookie.
Without missing a beat, Mr. Blacksmith turned to his left and picked up a silver tray. He already had the refreshments ready for us. Carefully he bent down and set the tray on the wide steps next to Cookie.
We set about drinking tea and eating scones while we waited for Pep to come back with His Majesty of Magic.
“Mirrorz never prepared anything like this for us,” I said with my mouth full of scone.
“I think they’re back,” said Cookie, straightening.
Pep had taken the old car and driven down to Grant’s headquarters, but she had been gone for quite a while, so long, in fact, that Orwell had finally stopped crying. Now Pep was back and looking grim.
A convoy of black vehicles followed the old car. I don’t know why I was surprised; if Pep was going to the investigators’ headquarters, of course she’d come back with investigators.
Cookie grabbed her cane, stood up, and brushed a pile of crumbs off of her dress. Then she waited.
“Are you all right?” Grant asked as he strode over. He’d barely waited for the car to stop before hopping out. The sun glinted off his shoulder insignia and his gray uniform looked sharp. His blue eyes were bright in the sun. Perfectly tousled black hair completed the eye-catching impression. I inhaled one long breath as his cape flapped behind him. He looked as good as ever.
“My thumb hurts,” said Cookie.
“The murder victim attacked you?” one of the deputies asked sharply.
“I didn’t say my thumb hurting had anything to do with the murder investigation,” said Cookie, as if the investigator was an idiot.
“So, you have no wounds?” Grant asked.
Cookie opened her mouth again, but he held up a hand and she closed it. Before she could say anything else confusing I said, “He was dead when we opened the door.”
Grant’s blue eyes shifted to me. He looked all business, but there was a warmth deep down in his gaze that made me indescribably happy.
“I’ll take a look,” he said and turned sharply toward the truck. All of his deputies had been waiting to see what he’d do. Now they followed him over to the scene of the crime.
“Wow,” breathed the one who had first spoken to Cookie. I recognized him as the same one Lark had lured away from the evidence room during the Darrell investigation.
“Jason, can you get going on the preliminaries?” Grant asked, frowning.
Jason was looking at Blu’s body, tipped sideways and seeming to lean on his head, and nearly gagging. But he got busy trying to do as Grant had asked.
Rose, who had jumped out of my lap when the investigators arrived, now came to coil around my legs. Grant looked down at her and swallowed hard. Rose looked up and purred. Grant took a step back, then another. Rose continued to wind herself around my legs.
“How does it feel to lose to a cat?” Cookie asked with a smirk.
“What is that burn spot on the ground?” Grant asked, ignoring Cookie and turning his attention away from Rose at the same time. “Was that there before this morning?”
When neither Cookie nor I said anything, Grant insisted: “I want the truth.”
“
After we found the body, we noticed a card on the ground. It burst into flames before you got here,” I said.
“Did you happen to see what was on the card?” one of the deputies asked.
“No, we didn’t,” said Cookie quickly.
I glared at her. Grant looked between us and his jaw tightened. Cookie treated him to a defiant look.
“Very well,” he said, and turned his attention back to the dead delivery driver.
By then the other deputies had walked around to the back of the truck. It wasn’t until I heard one of them yell that I remembered Orwell.
Before I could react, the yell was replaced by a scream; the spider was also not a fan of being startled. We all crowded around the little group of deputies, every one of whom looked aghast.
“What is that?” the deputy gasped.
“That is a spider. This is a truck. We are standing on gravel,” said Cookie.
“Thank you for making that so clear,” Grant drawled. Despite Cookie’s sandbagging him about the little burnt card, he was clearly trying not to laugh.
“You know that acting as if it’s funny only encourages her,” I said to him.
“I didn’t do it. I swear. I’m an innocent almost bystander,” said Orwell.
“What do you mean almost?” Grant asked.
“I didn’t see anything. He was supposed to come out to the back of the truck. I had opened the doors and gotten Mrs. Garbo’s wine. I was waiting for him to come and he never did. Then I heard a cry and some gurgling. Then it was just silence,” said Orwell.
“So you didn’t hear these two come out of the mansion?” Grant asked.
“I knew something awful had happened. I was busy crying. I have no idea how long anything took or when they came out,” said Orwell.
“It could only have been a couple of minutes,” I said.
“When the doorbell rang, we came. I was in my apartment. The girls were in the gift shop spying on me,” said Cookie.
“Is this why Audrey didn’t want you to get the package by yourself?” I asked, realization suddenly dawning. As usual, everything would have been a lot easier if Cookie had been honest from the beginning. Or if Cookie was honest ever.
Spooky Spider Page 3